A Reluctant Hufflepuff
by Horrorshow Jane
Summary: "If you're thinking that I'm not going to put you in Slytherin, then you're quite right," sniffed the Hat, sounding somewhat vindictively gleeful.  "The house which actually suits you best is—HUFFLEPUFF!"
1. Chapter 1

Draco Malfoy had known before he ever set foot on the Hogwarts Express that the Sorting Hat would sing before the actual Sorting began, but he hadn't been told how _trite_ the song was going to be. He felt a sneer of contempt creep across his face, and didn't bother to school his expression—why should he? Glancing around, he saw that his soon-to-be Slytherin housemates looked just as skeptical and disgusted as he did. When the Hat's song ended, and the rest of the Great Hall's occupants began to applaud, Draco folded his arms over his chest. He wasn't going to clap for _that_.

Professor McGonagall stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment. "When I call your name, you will put on the Hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Hannah!"

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the Hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment's pause-

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the Hat. Draco's lip curled. _Hufflepuff_, honestly.

Bones, Susan also went to Hufflepuff, and Boot, Terry to Ravenclaw, as did Brocklehurst, Mandy, and then Draco smiled as Bulstrode, Millicent went to Slytherin—Millie wasn't exactly his best friend, but their parents liked each other well enough, which was all that mattered, really—but Draco would probably marry Pansy Parkinson, which tended to put a damper on most of his friendships with other girls, who knew that they would need to cultivate other, more important relationships with potential husbands.

While he'd been thinking, McGonagall had called several more names, and the next to be called was the annoying, know-it-all, bushy-haired girl from the train named Hermione. Draco waited for the Hat to call out Ravenclaw, but it didn't. His eyebrows rose when she was sorted into Gryffindor, but then, he supposed it made sense; after Slytherin, Ravenclaw was the most respectable house, and so it was no wonder that house hadn't taken the likes of her; he thought his theory confirmed when Neville Longbottom, the snivelling, chubby boy who'd lost his toad earlier, was also sorted into Gryffindor.

Finally, Morag MacDougal was sorted, and it was Draco's turn.

He strode confidently towards the stool, sat, and then placed the Hat on his head. For a moment, he heard nothing, and waited impatiently for the Hat to call Slytherin.

"Slytherin, hmm?" said a voice. "That's where all Malfoys want to be." At that last, the Hat sounded somehow weary.

"Of course," retorted Draco. "It's the only honorable house in the school." The Hat chuckled at him, but it was laughter more of mocking than of amusement.

"The only honorable house?" said the Hat, sounding dryly skeptical. "Perhaps you didn't pay close enough attention to my explanation of the houses, Draco Malfoy."

"I already know all about the houses," he snapped back at the Hat in his mind, "so just put me in Slytherin and have done with it."

"No," said the Hat, "not until you tell me what you think you know." Draco mentally sighed, and physically felt his jaw clench.

"Slytherin takes after the honorable Salazar, and holds the purest of mind and blood; Ravenclaw is almost as good as Slytherin, where the knowledgeable go—but they've less ambition, less drive than Slytherins; Gryffindor is for the foolhardy and reckless; and Hufflepuff—Hufflepuff is perhaps worse, even, than Gryffindor, for that's where all of the cowards go," said Draco. There was complete silence for a very, very long moment. "Well? Get on with it."

"I think, Draco Malfoy," said the Hat slowly, "that you are so very, very wrong. Slytherin would not be best for you."

"What do you know?" said Draco. "You're just a stupid old Hat!"

"I was fashioned by Godric Gryffindor himself for this purpose, and you will abide by my decision, boy," replied the Hat, sounding calm, but warning at the same time. "Slytherin would lead you to ruin, and Ravenclaw would probably do the same. Gryffindor would kill you—perhaps literally, but..."

"No," said Draco, and he felt the blood drain from his face—had he been able to see himself, he would have seen a boy who looked comically pale with wide, wide eyes, looking perfectly horrified while wearing a too-large hat. "You can not be thinking what I think that you are."

"If you're thinking that I'm not going to put you in Slytherin, then you're quite right," sniffed the Hat, sounding somewhat vindictively gleeful. "The house which actually suits you best is—HUFFLEPUFF!"

There was dead silence in the Great Hall. No one moved, and there was certainly no applause.

"Now wait just a moment-" said Draco, and this time, he spoke out loud; the Hat had finished its examination of him, leaving him speaking to everyone. The sound of his voice spurred McGonagall to action, stepping towards him and clearing her throat politely as she held out her hand for the Hat. Draco glanced at her and glared. "I'm not through—the Hat's made a mistake. I need it to change-"

"Mister Malfoy," said Professor McGonagall, "please join your housemates at the Hufflepuff table." She, like the Hat, seemed to be on the verge of laughter. Still glaring at her, he was about to retort when someone at the Hufflepuff table started clapping. He whipped his head around, trying to find the culprit, and saw an older boy smiling benignly at him as he applauded, nudging his friends into doing the same. Gradually, it caught on, and the whole table was clapping; the Hufflepuffs looked confused, but not hostile.

And then the Hat was snatched from his head, and so was any hope for making Slytherin.

He sat across from the boy who had begun the clapping, and glared at him through the rest of the Sorting Ceremony, stopping only to watch Harry Potter be, very predictably, sorted into Gryffindor. The boy, for his part, glanced at him only occasionally and when he did gave him a rather bemused, somewhat indulgent smile. Draco wanted to scream at him, because that was most certainly _not_ the proper response to the Malfoy Glare of Certain Death, and Slytherins, at least, would have known that.

The Headmaster stood after Blaise Zabini was sorted into Slytherin—Draco felt a stab of anger; he knew Blaise, and knew that the other boy wasn't even very ambitious, and if _he_ could be put in Slytherin, why not Draco?-and the Great Hall was silent as they waited for the Headmaster to speak.

"Welcome!" called Dumbledore. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

"Thank you!"

He sat back down, and again as everyone else clapped, Draco simply scowled and gave a haughty huff of breath. The boy across from him looked to him, openly amused.

"Are you alright?" the boy asked Draco, though he was still smiling.

"No, I am most certainly _not_ alright," snapped Draco. "I'm not 'alright'-I am a sodding _Hufflepuff_." The boy nodded, and now looked sympathetic, although the amusement persisted.

"I've heard about the Malfoy family—my father works for the Ministry, so he's met your father a couple of times—and I can see how you would be upset about not being in Slytherin," the boy said calmly, "but Hufflepuff's a good house, too. I'm sure you'll make lots of friends. Oh! I didn't even introduce myself." He reached a hand across the table. "I'm Cedric Diggory." Still scowling, Draco shook his hand—he didn't want to, but his mother had drilled etiquette into him long ago, and he could not so grossly neglect it. The boy—Cedric-looked pleased, and smiled as he drew his hand back.

"Would you care for some potatoes, Draco?"

Draco barely listened to the few other first-years around him during the Feast; instead, he had been looking at the staff table, desperately trying to catch Professor Snape's eye. Not only was Snape the head of Slytherin, Draco knew, but he was also a friend of Lucius Malfoy, and together, they could fix the mistake the Hat made. Instead of Professor Snape, however, a rather chubby, cheerful looking woman caught his eye and grinned widely, giving him a little wave. Draco nodded curtly, again not wanting to neglect his etiquette, but far from giving the impression that he was in any way, shape, or form alright with the current state of things.

"Oh, I see Professor Sprout's noticed you," said Cedric after a moment, following Draco's line of sight to the staff table. "She's our head of house, you know, and the Herbology professor."

"_Your_ head of house," said Draco loftily, sounding calm even as he stabbed a piece of his meat with undue force. "I may be forced to spend the night in the Hufflepuff dormitory, but once my father hears about this, we'll correct this mistake straight away." He nodded firmly, having no doubt that the error would indeed be fixed. Around him, instead of looking offended as those of any other house might have, the Hufflepuffs looked just as Cedric first had: confused, but also very amused.

As the food disappeared at last, Professor Dumbledore stood again. The Hall fell silent, and Draco hoped that the Headmaster would say something a little more coherent in this speech.

"Ahem—just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of two red-headed boys at the Gryffindor table—the Weasley twins, Draco identified. "I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madame Hooch." Draco felt his stomach lurch—he had been making plans with his father to circumnavigate the first-year broom-ban and get him on the Quidditch team—the _Slytherin_ Quidditch team.

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death." Several people laughed, and Draco saw out of the corner of his eye that Harry Potter was one of the ones who did—of course the bloody Boy-Who-Lived wouldn't fear death.

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cried Dumbledore. At the staff table, the teachers were still smiling, but now rather woodenly; Draco glanced at the Hufflepuffs, and saw that most of the older students had that same indulgent smile Cedric had worn.

Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words. "Everyone pick their favorite tune," said Dumbledore, "and off we go!"

Draco resolutely did not sing, even as, all around him, students burst into song. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the absolute racket—because no one was even singing the same tune, or at the same pace—and thought that maybe he shouldn't even try to get into Slytherin, maybe he should write his father and ask to be sent to Durmstrang.

Beneath the table, someone nudged his foot, and he opened his eyes. Cedric and a few of the other, older students were gesturing to the banner—Draco shook his head frantically. They shrugged, and continued bellowing the horrible, horrible song.

"Ah, music," said Dumbledore when it had finally ended, after conducting the Weasley twins in their funeral march selection for a short time. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"

The students rose, as did the staff, and at each table, older students were calling out "follow me," and leading the younger ones out of the Hall towards their house dormitories. Draco, instead of following Cedric, went against the flow of students, trying to fight his way through the sea of people towards the staff table.

"What are you doing?" asked Professor Sprout, and Draco froze. Her voice had been kind, but bewildered and amused, just like the rest of the Hufflepuffs. He wondered if any of the sodding folk every stopped being so _cheerful_.

"It's rather imperative that I speak to Professor Snape," he said, trying to keep his voice level and polite instead of desperate. Professor Sprout smiled at him.

"Oh, I suppose that your father was friendly with him, wasn't he? It does help to see familiar faces on your first day away from home, I agree, but right now Professor Snape needs to see his own students to their common room and make the necessary introductions," said the professor. "I'm sure that you'll have a chance to speak with him after Potions class on Wednesday—Gryffindors and Slytherins have Potions tomorrow, but you'll know all of that in the morning when you get your timetable—and if that won't do, then perhaps we can arrange for a meeting in the morning."

"No!" cried Draco, and then cleared his throat, realizing that he had been rude. "I mean that, it's just..." Professor Sprout looked concerned, and laid a hand on his shoulder. Normally Draco found such gestures to be exceedingly rude and presumptuous, but just this once, he didn't mind; he blamed it on the almost total emptiness of the Hall and his current emotionally distraught state.

"What is it, dear boy?"

"I'm not supposed to be a Hufflepuff!" he exclaimed finally. The witch's eyebrows shot up, and she gave him a sympathetic smile.

"Is there something the matter, Pomona?" Both turned at the sound of the Headmaster's voice, and Draco stared at the man. He wondered how it was possible for someone to project so much light—the man was _twinkling_, and, rather surprisingly, it had little to do with his garish robes.

"Mr. Malfoy is concerned about his sorting," explained Professor Sprout, dropping her hand from his shoulder. Dumbledore "ah"d and turned to Draco, who shifted uncomfortably under the intense gaze of the blue eyes.

"Your father was in Slytherin—and your mother, too," said Dumbledore, "that much is true. However, and I doubt that Narcissa might have told you this, her sister Andromeda had a daughter—your cousin—named Nymphadora. The girl—no longer a girl, of course, but a woman—has graduated with excellent NEWT scores, and was accepted to Auror training."

"What does that have to do with this mistake?" asked Draco. After a slight pause, he shifted again, and added a contrite "sir." Dumbledore twinkled at him with the same sort of glee people apparently just wouldn't stop feeling around him.

"Your cousin Nymphadora was sorted into Hufflepuff as well," said Dumbledore. Draco blinked at the man. He had known that his mother had a sister named Andromeda, and through thinly-veiled contemptuous references, had gathered that she'd married a Mudblood, but he hadn't known that someone related to him—however weakly—had ever been put anywhere but Slytherin.

"Perhaps," continued Dumbledore, "that will be food for thought. Now, off to bed with you! You have Herbology first thing in the morning, and it wouldn't do for either of you to be tired. Goodnight, Pomona; good luck, Draco." He moved off, and Draco stood rooted to the spot for a moment.

"Come then, dear," said Sprout happily, "let's get to the common room."

Draco followed Professor Sprout through a painting which was down one floor from the Great Hall, but nowhere near the actual dungeons, and grimaced the instant he saw the common room. It was blindingly yellow, with black accents, and Draco was very strongly reminded of a bumblebee.

There were students milling about, and all of the first-years were still in the common room, apparently waiting for Professor Sprout. She gestured for everyone to sit, either in the armchairs or on the couches or floor around her, and waited until they'd all done so—including Draco, although he sat somewhat removed from the rest of the group—before beginning to speak.

"Well, hello Hufflepuffs!" she said excitedly. "I just wanted to give you the basics tonight, because I know that you're all probably very tired.

"Boys' and girls' dormitories are separated, and there are two of each: one for first through third year and one fourth through seventh year. I do not mind mingling between the years, that separation is simply to keep from over-crowding, but please do not try entering the opposite gender's dormitories!" There were giggles, and Sprout tried and failed to look stern until they tapered off.

"You'll be receiving your timetables tomorrow at breakfast. Please obey Professor Dumbledore's instructions regarding the off-limits areas. If you get lost, which I'm sure many of you will, don't hesitate to ask a prefect or a portrait—they're quite used to giving directions, and the majority quite enjoy interacting with students.

"Beyond that, I've only two things to say: as your head of house, I hope that you will feel free to come to me with _any_ problems you should encounter, be it homesickness or bullying or a lost familiar. I am here not only to keep you in line, but to keep you happy and productive!" Draco rolled his eyes to himself. "Now, my final message for the evening." The older students sat back as though they knew what was coming, although they paid just as much attention to their head of house as the first-years did.

"Hufflepuff is often marginalized as a house, but we have an advantage few realize exists. It is true that Hufflepuff 'took the rest,' as the Sorting Hat says, but that does not mean that Hufflepuff consists of mediocre witches and wizards—instead, it means that here in this house, we combine the traits of all the other three." Draco's eyebrows rose, and he found himself leaning forward slightly, interested despite himself.

"Helga Hufflepuff took the hard-working who can relate to Ravenclaw's studious nature, and she took the loyal, who can relate to Gryffindor's chivalry, and-" Here she pointedly glanced at Draco, but there was still a smile on her face instead of a stern look. "-dear Helga Hufflepuff took the patient and intelligent, who can relate to the cunning of Slytherins.

"Our house's founder strove for unity, and I wish you all to remember that, and to do the same. Strive every day to embody the qualities of all the houses of Hogwarts, and it will make the best witch or wizard out of you that you can possibly be. Strive every day to be a credit to Helga Hufflepuff's house."

Draco did not owl his father immediately that night, for he found that he did not know what to say. He blanched when he saw the yellow scarves and ties left next to the bed which was obviously his, but suddenly, he thought that just maybe Hufflepuff wouldn't be quite as bad as he'd first assumed.

The following morning, Professor Sprout arrived to lead the first-years to the Great Hall, not wanting them to be lost on their first day. She greeted each first-year with a nod, their name, and a smile as they passed her to go through the portrait. Draco was last.

"Mr. Malfoy," said Professor Sprout, frowning at the boy, "why aren't you wearing your tie?"

"I'm afraid yellow doesn't suit my complexion, Professor," he said very seriously, and immediately her frown became a smile.

"You're a very strapping young boy, Mr. Malfoy, and I'm sure you'll stay that way in Hufflepuff colors." He blinked at her, and was still too busy being confused to protest when Cedric pushed a glaringly yellow tie into his hand and shoved him out the portrait hole.

It wasn't until Transfigurations that day that he actually donned the tie, telling himself that he looked rather stupid wearing an incomplete uniform and that it had nothing whatsoever to do with Professor McGonagall's admittedly intimidating glare.

After Transfigurations was a whole free hour before lunch, and Draco immediately headed for the dungeons. He had just managed to find the potions classroom when he heard his name called, and turned only to have a loudly squeaking female launch herself at him.

"Draco!" It was Pansy, and he patted her shoulders awkwardly—they might have been slated to marry, but that didn't mean that Draco _liked_ physical contact with her, exactly. "Draco, it's just _awful_ what happened with the Hat! Did you owl your father? Are you going to see Snape? Is he going to fix it?"

"Pansy, please, have some decorum," he said, feeling very snobbish indeed, as he usually did with Pansy, disentangling himself from the hug, and noticing for the first time that Crabbe and Goyle were standing a few feet behind her. "I am going to see Professor Snape, yes."

"Oh, good," sighed Pansy. "He has this hour free, too, so you won't be bothering him." She grabbed his hand and squeezed it in a way she must have thought was comforting and bestowed a smile on him. "Good luck, Draco."

"Thank you." He waited until they had passed, and then knocked on the door.

"Come," barked an angry voice, and Draco hesitated for a second before obeying. The classroom looked much as he had expected it would, and Snape was sitting at his desk at the front of the classroom, glaring down at a piece of parchment. He looked up as Draco shut the door and nodded to the boy. "I've been expecting you. Before you ask, there is no way to change houses once the Sorting Hat has chosen." Draco nodded, not bothering to tell the professor that he had actually been contemplating the benefits of staying in Hufflepuff. He had not yet decided firmly enough _not_ to seek Snape's help, though, so there he was. He saw Snape staring at his tie, and then the Potions Master's lips twisted into a small rueful smile. "A Malfoy in Hufflepuff. I never thought I would see that." He shook his head. "Have you heard from your father?"

Just as he had at the Sorting Ceremony, Draco felt the blood drain from his face. "Does... does he already know?" His voice came out rather smaller than he'd meant it to, and he sounded just as fearful as he felt.

Snape nodded. "He does. I received an owl this morning from him, asking whether it would help to take the matter to the Headmaster. I assured him it would not. I fully expect him to do so anyway." Draco found it rather hard to meet the professor's eyes at this point. "He will have to face the fact that you are in Hufflepuff at some point, Draco, as will you." Draco shook his head.

"I... that isn't it, Professor," he said in the same timid voice. "I'm... well, Hufflepuff doesn't seem _horrible_, exactly, but... I know that Father won't be pleased. At all. In fact, he'll probably be very angry." He sounded very afraid, then, and Snape frowned and stood, going around his desk to Draco.

"Draco," he said, tone very delicate, "Lucius doesn't... take out his frustrations on you, does he?" Draco looked up at that, frowning himself in confusion. Suddenly, he understood, and his eyes went wide as he shook his head.

"No!" he protested. "No, there's nothing like _that_ going on. Father would never hurt me. I just... I don't like to disappoint him." Snape held his gaze for a long moment, probably gauging his truthfulness, and Draco felt the uncomfortable sensation that his thoughts were being... taken, or something. Snape nodded.

"Lucius will, as I said, have to reconcile himself to his Hufflepuff son," he said flatly. "If that is all...?" Draco nodded. "Go, then." Draco thanked him cordially, and just before he left, he could have sworn he heard Snape muttering about "that garish yellow." He smirked.

At lunch that day, Draco realized halfway through his meal that not only had he not eaten, but that he was also staring at the Slytherin table, where the friends he'd grown up playing with were talking and laughing without him. He jumped, startled as Cedric sat down next to him.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," said Cedric casually, grinning at the first-year.

"It's quite alright," answered Draco, frowning—Hufflepuffs apologized and smiled more than anyone he'd ever met before in his life.

"I managed to get to the library this morning," Cedric told him, "though there were already a bunch of Ravenclaws there—and that Gryffindor, Granger." Draco sneered at the mention of the girl, but quickly schooled his expression when Cedric frowned at him. "Anyway, I got something for you." He pulled a library book out of his school bag, setting it next to Draco. He peered at it, and then at Cedric, suspicious.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's about Helga Hufflepuff," answered Cedric. "It talks about her contributions to the school, and her relationships with the other Founders, and the first students to graduate from Hogwarts as Hufflepuffs. I thought it might help."

"Help what?"

"Well, don't take this the wrong way," Cedric said quickly, "but you didn't exactly seem eager to be a Hufflepuff. I just wanted to expand on what Professor Sprout said about Hufflepuff's good qualities." Draco nodded eventually.

"Thank you," he said awkwardly, not very used to showing gratitude, though there was something about these Hufflepuffs which brought out the strangest emotions in him. He frowned at Cedric suddenly. "Aren't you a fourth-year?" Cedric nodded. "Then what the hell are you doing bothering with a first-year?"

"You shouldn't swear," Cedric scolded, although it seemed an automatic reaction. "You're interesting. Different."

"I'm different."

"Yeah. You're... I'm not sure how to explain it, but I think it's that you didn't grow up like most of us did—any of us, really—and you have an entirely different way of thinking. It's interesting." Draco finally nodded, accepting the explanation. He didn't mind being called different, really; it was the fate of a Malfoy to be exceptional, of course.

Draco hadn't planned to cut short the conversation with Cedric, but the family owl came then, dropping a letter in front of him and giving a stern, even angry, hoot before flying off without waiting for a reply. Draco read it and sighed.

_Draco,_

_ I will be meeting with the Headmaster and Professors Sprout and Snape this afternoon. Don't concern yourself with this problem; I will remedy it._

_Lucius A. Malfoy_

In the end, the "meeting" between his father, the Headmaster, and Professors Sprout and Snape that afternoon turned into Professor Sprout yelling at his father with righteous indignation while Professor McGonagall, who had come running as soon as she heard that Lucius Malfoy was in her school, glared threateningly at Lucius from behind the other witch, sometimes calling out in support of her fellow head of house. Lucius responded to this with poorly veiled threats, and turned, every now and again, to Snape, imploring him to _do something_, or to Dumbledore, threatening to use his influence and seat on the Board of Governors to have him removed. Dumbledore, for his part, merely sat calmly behind his desk and twinkled ever more brightly at Draco, who sank down farther and farther in his seat.

"-absolutely ridiculous!" Professor Sprout was yelling when Draco began paying attention again. "This happens to at least one student every single year! Parents need to learn to accept their children, not try to make them replicas of themselves!"

"How dare you presume to challenge my rights as Draco's father!" Lucius hissed back, and Draco sighed and looked away, beginning to gnaw on the inside of his cheek. Dumbledore gave him a measuring look, and then stood. All of the adults immediately fell silent.

"There have been cases in the past where a student has been allowed to try the Hat on once more, but not in a single instance has the Hat changed its decision," said Dumbledore loftily. Lucius made to speak but the Headmaster held up a hand, staying him. "Perhaps we should ask Draco what he wants." Then four pairs of adult eyes were fixed on Draco, who shifted uncomfortably. "Would you care to try the Hat on again?" Dumbledore's voice was gentle, and his tone neutral; unlike Lucius, he wouldn't be disappointed if Draco said no. He glanced at Snape, who merely looked interested, and McGonagall, who was still glaring nastily at his father. He looked at Professor Sprout, who was giving him an encouraging smile, a far cry from the anger she'd displayed only moments before. Finally, he glanced at Lucius, who was staring at him expectantly. He obviously thought Draco's answer would be yes.

Draco thought of Cedric, and he thought of Professor Sprout's speech the night before about the virtues of Hufflepuff, and making Helga proud, and he paused. What would a good Hufflepuff do?

"Er, well," he said, sounding tentative and very small and young, which he was, but generally covered up with enormous amounts of bravado and cheek, "I think that... well, Hufflepuff is a good house, isn't it? I mean, the Hat probably won't change its mind anyway, and I... there are nice people in Hufflepuff." Draco looked at Dumbledore, who was suddenly beaming at him with even more fervor than he had before, pleased by his decision. He glanced at the professors; McGonagall looked shocked, and Snape looked amused and vaguely approving while Sprout looked downright joyful and triumphant. He looked at his father.

To say that Lucius was shocked would have been an understatement. The imposing blond man was standing there practically gaping at his son—the Malfoy equivalent was a release of tension in the jaw and widened eyes—as he tried, and failed, to understand his son's choice. He opened and closed his mouth several times without saying anything, looking for all the world like a fish out of water.

"Draco..." Lucius trailed off. Dumbledore nodded resolutely.

"Wonderful!" cried Dumbledore, and Draco had a feeling that the Headmaster genuinely felt that this was wonderful, although he wasn't sure why. "Draco will make a fine Hufflepuff, I'm sure. You have no reason to fret, Lucius-" Draco saw his father start and almost recover from his shock at Dumbledore's familiar treatment of him. "-for Pomona is an excellent head of house. She's very protective of her bunch." And then he was guiding Lucius past the three gathered professors to the door. "Now, I realize that this must be a shock, but perhaps you should write to your sister-in-law Andromeda? Her daughter was sorted into Hufflepuff, too, you realize. Have a very nice day, Lucius." And then he was shutting the door, Lucius Malfoy standing flabbergasted on the other side of it. Dumbledore turned to the rest of the room's current occupants. "Well then! For remaining firm under pressure and displaying admirable loyalty to your house, Draco, ten points to Hufflepuff." Sprout gave a pleased hum, Snape still looked amused, and McGonagall still looked as though she might fall over if someone so much as blew on her.

"I have a class to teach," said Snape, heading for the door. "Good day." McGonagall hesitated.

"I apologize, Mr. Malfoy," she said to him, the words sounding as though it pained her very mouth to say them, "for I had assumed that you would be just like your father, and readily give into his demands. Well done." And then she too was gone.

"A reluctant Hufflepuff no more," said Sprout happily. "I'm sure you'll go far in this house, Draco. As Minerva said, that was a very fine job you just did." She squeezed his shoulder, and even as Draco idly wondered what was with these Hufflepuff people and their happiness and their _touching_, he tried to ignore how proud he was currently feeling.

An hour later, waiting for the start of Charms, he couldn't ignore the feeling any longer as he explained to his housemates that he'd gotten them ten points on his first day. The resulting smirk was softer, and could very well be classified as a smile. In his happiness, he was one of the first to float his feather, and the near-smile became a genuine grin as he earned another three points for it.

Draco could definitely get used to this Hufflepuff business.


	2. Chapter 2

Potions was awkward, to say the least. Hufflepuff had that class with the Ravenclaws, and had been spared having to see the confrontation between Professor Snape and Harry Potter. As the group of first years sat waiting for their professor, they gossiped.

"_I_ heard that Potter didn't know any of the answers to Professor Snape's questions," sniffed one of the Ravenclaws, and Draco smirked to himself. Of course that would be the cardinal sin to a Ravenclaw.

"What if Professor Snape was asking really hard questions on purpose?" said one of Draco's fellow Hufflepuffs, a boy named Ernie Macmillan. All of the Hufflepuffs were very fair-minded, as the Hat and Professor Sprout had promised, and they were always looking for the best in people. Draco had been approached by most of his year-mates already, as they introduced themselves and told him how much they looked forward to getting to know him. Draco had managed not to snort ourtright at them, and simply nodded.

The chatter about Harry Potter continued, moving from the incident in his first Potions class to general rumors they'd heard. Draco rolled his eyes, and saw one of his housemates looking equally skeptical, rolling his eyes in response. He smiled at the blond; Draco remembered that the boy's name was Justin Finch-Fletchley.

"Silence." Snape had swept into the room without them noticing, and most of the class jumped. Snape smirked at them. The single word had been spoken in a normal tone of voice, and sounded almost like a request instead of a command, although the students knew better. Snape headed for the front of the classroom, his robes billowing out behind him. "You will be brewing a very simple potion today, the Boil-Cure potion. Hopefully you will fare better than certain Gryffindor students." So he had heard their gossip, then; Draco was surprised that he hadn't taken points or something. Snape flicked his wand. "An ingredient list and instructions are on the board. Ingredients are in the cabinets. Choose your partners and get to work." He sat down at his desk, and then Justin was turning to Draco.

"Partners?" he asked agreeably, and Draco nodded. "Great! If you set up the cauldron, I'll get the ingredients." He nodded. Draco set up their cauldron as promised, and then looked past Snape to the instructions on the board. The potion looked fairly simple, so long as you could follow the instructions.

He and Justin worked well together, and even managed to make small talk as they worked.

"Are you an only child?" asked Justin curiously, and Draco nodded as he added some dried nettles. "I thought you might be. Those of us who are just tend to show it, you know?" Draco did know, especially since the few Slytherins—he still felt a slight pang of something unpleasant he couldn't identify when he thought about the house, but ignored it—he knew who had siblings tended to be very loud and guarded what attention they got zealously.

"My father wanted me to go to Durmstrang, but my mother was opposed to her only son going so far from home," said Draco, and saw Justin frown.

"Durmstrang?" asked Justin, and now Draco frowned. How could he not know about Durmstrang?

"Another magical school in Norway," said Draco, and he saw Justin nodding.

"My mother was all set to send me off to Eton, before I got the letter to go here," said Justin. "I had to fight her tooth and nail to get her to agree to send me here." It was Draco's turn to be confused, but Justin caught on quickly. "Eton's a really good school near Berkshire. They have lots of famous alumni—eighteen Prime Ministers have gone there, you know."

"Prime Ministers," repeated Draco dully, now staring at Justin rather than their potion. "I... your parents are Muggles?" Justin grinned at him and nodded.

"Took a while for us to figure out what that word meant, but yeah," Justin answered. Draco continued to stare. This... person he'd been talking to had Muggle parents, and yet here he was at Hogwarts. Just like Hermione Granger. "Are you alright?"

"I... our potion is ready," Draco said as it turned pink. They took it off of the flame, and bottled it in flasks quickly. After they were dismissed, Draco took his bag and rushed off as quickly as possible.

* * *

><p>Draco sat alone near the end of the Hufflepuff table at lunch, stabbing at his food angrily, though little of it made it to his mouth. He frowned at his plate.<p>

Justin Finch-Fletchley had seemed perfectly... nice. He hadn't stooped low enough to gossip and chatter as their classmates had, and he had been proficient enough at potion-making. And then Draco found out that he was a Mudblood.

He sighed. His mother had written him, telling him that she loved him, but saying little else, and Draco had understood the hidden message: they were disappointed, and confused. Narcissa had mentioned that Draco shouldn't expect his father to "come around" for quite some time—in other words, he was disappointed, as Draco had known he would be, and what would he do if he found out that his Hufflepuff son was fraternizing with Mudbloods? How disappointed would Lucius be then?

Draco looked up just in time to see Justin enter the Hall with another Hufflepuff, Ernie Macmillan, and watched as Justin said something to the other boy, and headed towards Draco.

Just as he had during Potions, Draco grabbed his bag and left quickly.

He was halfway down the hallway back towards the Hufflepuff common room when he heard footsteps behind him, and glanced over his shoulder. It was Cedric.

"Draco!" the other boy called, and Draco stopped, letting the fourth-year catch up to him. "Is everything okay?" It was practically the same question he'd asked after Draco was sorted, and Draco gave practically the same answer.

"No, it is not 'okay,'" he snapped. "Nothing's going right here!"

"What happened?" asked Cedric, frowning. "I thought you were okay with being in Hufflepuff—you told the Headmaster that you didn't want to try on the Hat again, after all."

"Maybe that was a mistake," said Draco, "because my father is already disappointed enough without hearing that I've been talking to Mudbloods-"

"Mr. Malfoy!" Draco turned at the high-pitched exclamation, and saw Professor Flitwick standing behind him. "Come with me right now!" Draco glanced back at Cedric with a sinking feeling, and Cedric gave him a small half-smile and headed back towards the Hall, glancing back to see Draco and the Charms Professor walking away.

Professor Flitwick led him not to his office next to the Charms classroom, but to a larger room not far from the Hufflepuff common room; there were small sofas and tables, and a fire was crackling in the fireplace. There were several professors seated around the room, some with tea, talking quietly, and some marking essays. Draco saw Professor Sprout and Professor McGonagall, but he didn't recognize the others; they were professors for things like Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, classes he wouldn't get to take until he was in his third year.

"Pomona," squeaked Flitwick, and the professor looked up, and frowned as she saw Draco standing awkwardly behind the small man. "I believe you and Mr. Malfoy might need to have a conversation." Draco's stomach lurched as Professor Sprout's eyebrows went up, and she set her tea down. He recalled the pleased expression she'd worn when he'd declined to try on the Hat again, and felt a little bit worse as he saw her pursed lips. She walked over to Professor Flitwick and leaned down, and he whispered to her what had happened. She sighed and nodded, patting Professor Flitwick on the shoulder.

"I'll take care of this," she said, "thank you, Filius. Come then, Mr. Malfoy." Draco saw the teachers in the staff room glance at each other, and then at him, and he looked away, and followed Professor Sprout.

His head of house took him to her office; instead of having it near her classroom, like the other professors, because hers was on the grounds instead of in the castle, she kept one next to the Hufflepuff common room. It was cosy, with a desk situated in the corner of the room instead of taking up most of the space, and there was a yellow sofa near two armchairs. A few bookcases and plants completed the space, and as he looked around, Professor Sprout sat in one of the armchairs, and gestured for him to do the same. He did.

"Professor Flitwick tells me that you've had a bit of a problem with Justin, Mr. Malfoy," she said. "He only heard a portion of what you said to Cedric Diggory, but from the sounds of it, you have a problem with him because he's Muggleborn." Draco shifted uncomfortably under her kind, yet strongly disapproving stare. "The language you used is not acceptable, here, Mr. Malfoy. Where did you hear it?"

Draco swallowed nervously, and looked away from her. "Around."

"Around," repeated Professor Sprout, and then she sighed, and leaned forward, bringing his attention back to her. "Mr. Malfoy, the other bit of the conversation Professor Flitwick overheard was something about your father being disappointed. Perhaps you heard it from him?" He felt himself flush. "I suspected as much. What, exactly, happened with Justin?"

"Nothing, really," Draco said, glad to be able to give a rather innocuous, truthful answer. "I... we were partners, in Potions, and we were... well. He told me about... his parents."

"And you panicked a bit, having grown up the way you did," finished Professor Sprout, and Draco felt his face heat even further. It sounded rather... juvenile when she said it like that, and Justin really had been nice, but... "You came here fully expecting to become a Slytherin, and looking at the students who were sorted there, the students you must have been friends with growing up—it's hardly surprising you have these attitudes." Draco blinked, surprised. She wasn't yelling at him, and so far, she hadn't really done anything other than try to understand what had happened.

"I am in no way excusing what you said, Mr. Malfoy, but I do recognize that it is only the symptom of a deeper problem," she said sternly, though her voice somehow managed to remain kind. "I am deducting fifteen points for your use of such an offensive word, and you are going to assist Professor Burbage with anything she needs help with each Sunday for the rest of the month." Draco felt his heart sink. The points he'd gotten for Hufflepuff were gone, leaving him with a net of -2, and he'd just received four days of detention, and all on his third day at Hogwarts. Professor Sprout patted his hand. "Please try to look at this as an education, rather than a horrible punishment.

"Now, I believe you have Defence Against the Dark Arts soon. You'd best be getting to class."

* * *

><p>By the time dinner was over and Draco returned to the Hufflepuff common room, news of what he'd said to Cedric had spread to the rest of his house. He entered the common room to be greeted by the sudden hushing of his housemates' conversations, and several glares directed at him. Justin himself sat in a corner, working on his homework with Ernie, and Draco felt his stomach lurch again.<p>

He bit the inside of his cheek, and clutched at his schoolbag a little more tightly before heading up to his dormitory. As he passed the other Hufflepuffs, he heard someone whisper, "just like his father..." Draco swallowed hard, wondering why that upset him when it had always been his goal.

Taking refuge in his bed, he pulled the hangings and pulled out his assignments, planning to work on his Transfigurations essay before going to bed. He found that he couldn't concentrate, and so, frustrated, he threw the parchment and quill down on his bedside table and lay there, staring up at the ceiling. He found that he couldn't sleep, either. Sighing heavily, he opened his schoolbag to look for something to distract him from how stupidly upset he was, and saw on top the book Cedric had given him about Helga Hufflepuff.

Draco woke up late the next morning. He was still dressed in his uniform, although his yellow tie had long since been loosened, and the book about Helga Hufflepuff was lying open on his chest. He'd fallen asleep very late the night before, the book being the only thing to hold his attention. Throwing open the hangings around his bed, he glanced at the clock, which said, "tut, tut—you're very late!" He glared at the clock as though it were the object's fault that he'd forgotten to set an alarm the previous night. He didn't have time for breakfast, but if he hurried, he wouldn't be late for Herbology.

He ran down the stairs to the Great Hall where he exited the castle and sprinted towards the greenhouses. When he got there, the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff first-years were still just mingling, although Draco entered just before Professor Sprout.

"Right then, please take your seats!" She waited for her students to sit, and Draco glanced around before quickly taking an empty seat. The Hufflepuff he'd sat next to during the first Herbology class, Hannah Abbott—he recalled ridiculing her in his mind for being sorted into Hufflepuff the first night, but tried not to show it—was now glaring at him forbiddingly, sitting next to some Gryffindor boy.

"C-can I sit here?" asked a nervous-looking boy. Draco glanced at the tie, and saw that it was red—a Gryffindor, then. He nodded, and peered at the boy's face, placing him after a moment as Neville Longbottom.

"Today you're going to be learning to identify different types of plans using only leaf attributes," said Sprout. "You'll be working with your partner, taking turns practicing and explaining the characteristics, what they mean, and how to look for them." She waved her wand, and two boxes appeared on each table. "Each box holds leaves and the attributes of each and the plant from which it came. You all have different sets of plants, so remember to work together! Good luck, and I'll be checking your progress soon."

As Draco opened his box, the other boy started talking. "I'm Neville Longbottom. You're Draco Malfoy, right?" Draco nodded, and wondered idly where he'd heard the name Longbottom before. "The Sorting Hat was torn between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff for me. Hufflepuff didn't sound like a bad place—I think I'd have liked it, really—but I wanted to be in Gryffindor like my mum and dad. That's a shrivelfig leaf." Draco blinked at the boy, surprised partially by the non-sequitor and partially because he'd identified it so quickly.

"How did you know that?" Neville smiled.

"With shrivelfigs, it all has to do with the shape of the leaf, the texture, and the color."

By the time Herbology was over and they left the greenhouse, Draco had resolved to partner with Neville in that subject whenever he possibly could.

* * *

><p>All through Astronomy, Potions, and Transfigurations the rest of the week, Draco rarely interacted with members of his own house. He'd been reduced to talking to two people only, really, those being Neville and Cedric. He and Neville had agreed, after Draco sheepishly admitted how lost he'd been after even the first Herbology class, that Neville would help Draco with his homework in exchange for Draco's help in Potions, Neville's worst subject—Draco frowned when Neville described how cruel Snape was to many of the Gryffindors, but shrugged it off, telling himself that the other boy was just very biased. As for Cedric, they rarely had much time together, as Cedric began training for Quidditch early, but Cedric took time every day to at least say hello. Draco always responded with either a curt nod or a sneer, but Cedric seemed to sense that the rather isolated boy actually did appreciate it.<p>

When not in class or doing homework, Draco spent his time reading about Helga Hufflepuff. He'd learned more about Hufflepuff from that book than he had in the eleven years he'd been alive—the house hadn't really been high on his parents' list of priorities of things to teach their son. He'd known the basic facts of her life, of course, like where and when she'd been born, and that she'd been good friends with Rowena Ravenclaw, but he hadn't known things like it was because of her that the house elves had been given work in the kitchens, or that she was very gifted when it came to Charms, or, far more interestingly, that Helga had managed to hold the Founders together for a time after an ill-fated relationship between Godric Gryffindor and a relation of Rowena Ravenclaw went very badly wrong, or that Helga Hufflepuff was interested in healing, and twice saved Salazar Slytherin's life.

And then he read that she and Slytherin, who'd always had some tension due to their completely opposite viewpoints on students suitable for Hogwarts, had had a row once in the middle of the Great Hall which ended in hexes, with Godric Gryffindor stepping in to duel for her. Draco had snickered at that, but abruptly stopped as he read on and found that Helga had then reprimanded Gryffindor, extracting an apology from him, and that after an entire year of not speaking to Slytherin, she had gone to him and apologized.

Two weeks later, Slytherin left the school. Gryffindor had stood that night in the Great Hall and delivered a eulogy for the man, even though he was not yet dead—he was dead to them, at any rate. The Slytherin students who stayed were left without a teacher, and Hufflepuff took them on.

Suddenly, Draco understood—Hufflepuff, she took the rest, and taught them all she knew.

* * *

><p>Before Draco knew it, Saturday was over, and it was Sunday—time for his detention. He trudged up the stairs to the Muggle Studies room, and knocked on the door as though he was about to be executed. It swung open and he was greeted by a cheerful-looking woman who reminded him a bit of Professor Sprout.<p>

"Hello, Mr. Malfoy," she said. "Today I thought you could help me mark some seventh-years' quizzes." She gestured to one of the desks, and Draco looked around at the classroom for a moment. The desks and arrangement looked like any other classroom, but all around the classroom walls there were pictures that didn't move, and a few bookcases held books completely unfamiliar to Draco—he suspected that they were Muggle books, since the Malfoy library held most magical texts.

"Here you are," said Professor Burbage, handing him a stack of paper, and then another sheet. "It's multiple choice, and I've given you the key, so you can just go through and mark what they've got wrong. Oh!" She set down a quill and ink next to him, and then left him to it.

Draco got to his task, and at first, he went through the quizzes only looking at the letters, and then, eventually, he began to read the questions and answers.

_Alexander Graham Bell was the inventor of which Muggle object (hint: it's still used today)? _Draco frowned at the answers:_ A. The television. B. The automobile. C. The Internet. D. The telephone. _He had no idea what any of them besides automobile meant.

As he continued marking the quizzes, he told himself that he wasn't the least bit curious, either.

* * *

><p>When Draco got back to the Hufflepuff common room after his detention, he felt a flash of anger as he was greeted by the now customary stares and sudden silence. He glanced over at Justin again, and he remembered what he'd read about Slytherin and Hufflepuff's row, and how it took her a year to apologize. He frowned as he thought that he was probably the Slytherin in this situation.<p>

And then the answer came to him—they were reacting so strongly to him not because he'd made a mistake and said something they found stupid and insensitive, but because they'd been a little wary of him already. Just as he viewed himself as being a Slytherin, they viewed him also as something foreign, something they didn't _really_ understand, someone who wasn't really like them.

Maybe they were right.

He turned around and left the common room, heading for the library. He was getting tired of staring at the curtains around his bed anyway.

He was hiding in the Ancient Wizarding History section, reading more about Helga Hufflepuff and her Slytherin-Hufflepuffs when the second part of the equation came to him. Draco was the Salazar Slytherin of this situation, but he'd been sorted into Hufflepuff. Maybe he could be like her, too. He frowned as he realized just what that meant: he'd have to apologize.

Draco recalled the glares he got from his housemates each time he so much as entered the common room and grimaced. Perhaps he should find a less... intimidating target first.

At that moment, the bushy-haired form of Hermione Granger walked by, and he smiled for the first time in the last few days.

Draco waited until dinner that Sunday night, and knew he may not get another chance. He was sitting, as usual, alone at the end of the Hufflepuff table. He tried to keep his nerves down, but found with a start that he couldn't keep himself from staring at the Gryffindor table, or stop his leg from bouncing beneath the table. Near the end of the meal, he could take it no longer, and stood up.

He walked over to the Gryffindor table, and many around him fell silent. There wasn't a rule, exactly, about having to sit with your house except for during the Welcoming and Leaving Feasts, but it wasn't often that the houses mingled like that during mealtimes. Draco stood behind Harry and Ron, who didn't seem to notice him. He cleared his throat, and grinned at Neville, who was sitting across from them, and staring at Draco quizzically.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" asked Ron belligerently. He looked angry, where Harry only looked curious. "Why'd you come over here? Isn't it enough that you're trying to corrupt those Hufflepuffs with your Slytherin self?" Draco bristled, and Harry quietly hissed, "_Ron_!"

"I am not a Slytherin, Weasley," he drawled, leveling a glare at the redhead, "I am a Hufflepuff." Ron scoffed.

"Yeah, right," he said, and rolled his eyes. "As if I'd believe anything you told me now! Slimy git." Harry was not-quite-glaring at Ron, and then glanced at Draco, who was still glaring at his friend.

"You're a complete idiot, Weasley," said Draco, "and for your information, I came over here to apologize."

"What?" This was from Harry, Ron, Neville, and more than a few of the students nearby who'd been watching the exchange closely. An instant later, Draco realized that even the professors at the staff table were watching him, and he felt himself flush again.

"Before you so rudely accused me of being a 'slimy git,' Weasley, I was going to tell you that I regretted being a bit of a prat to you both, but now," Draco paused, taking in their confused expressions, and Harry's somewhat calculating one, "I don't think I will. Good day." He started walking towards the Hall's exit.

"Malfoy!" He turned when Harry Potter called his name, and saw that the black-haired boy was halfway out of his seat. "Um. Apology accepted." Draco nodded curtly, and continued on.

He couldn't stop what happened next even if he'd wanted to: he thought, in the Slytherin way in which he'd been raised, that making an ally of Harry Potter could be quite advantageous, and he'd just gotten a step closer to that. He smiled to himself.

Draco also pretended that he was _not_ feeling a distinctly pleasant feeling blossoming in his chest at the knowledge that he'd just gotten his first real taste of forgiveness. Maybe apologizes and forgiveness could be just as good, in the end, as Hufflepuff.


	3. Chapter 3

Draco got back to the Hufflepuff common room before anyone else had finished dinner, which was part of his current plan. He stopped in his dormitory to retrieve the book about Hufflepuff, and situated himself in one of the large armchairs in front of the fireplace. Opening the book, he began to read even though he knew it wouldn't be long before he was interrupted. He was right.

"What are you playing at?" He didn't look up, recognizing Cedric's voice. The older boy sat down next to him. As always, Cedric didn't sound angry, or even annoyed. "Most of the Hufflepuffs are mad at you, so you go and apologize to Harry Potter, a Gryffindor? The Boy-Who-Lived? What's going on?"

"I was practicing," said Draco, a bit of a self-satisfied drawl entering his voice. His answer was the truth, too, but Cedric was thrown by his statement for a moment, before shaking his head.

"This is probably one of those things that I'm not going to understand unless you explain it to me because you still think sort of like a Slytherin, isn't it?" mused Cedric, and Draco finally looked up. The fourth-year looked pensive, and a bit confused, but he didn't seem agitated as the others did when they mentioned that Draco was still very Slytherin. Draco wondered why, and then remembered that this _was't_ Slytherin, where you shouldn't voice your thoughts, and you could actually ask personal questions here; so he asked.

"I believe what Professor Sprout says every year," said Cedric with a shrug. "Hufflepuff has the qualities of _all_ of the houses, and that includes Slytherin. Besides, I read that book-" He gestured to the tome still in Draco's lap. "-a long time ago, so I already know about Hufflepuff taking Slytherin's students." Draco's lips twitched in a smile, but he quickly quelled the expression. It wouldn't do to look happy when the other students entered. "So are you going to explain your plot to me?"

"You'll see it, in a minute," answered Draco with a shrug, and glanced towards the portrait hole where Hufflepuffs were beginning to stream in; predictably, they gathered a small distance away from where he and Cedric sat and began whispering. Draco didn't have to hear them to know that they were discussing what just happened in the Great Hall. He smirked at Cedric, and then schooled his expression, and stood, turning to face the group. They went quiet. "Justin?" There was a slight pause where no one moved, the tension building, and then the boy was pushing his way to the front of the crowd. "I'd like to apologize."

"So do it, then," said Justin, but Draco noticed he didn't seem angry or even very confrontational. Draco tried very hard not to smile at that.

"I know you heard about what I called you, and I'm sorry if—that it hurt you," said Draco. Justin's eyes narrowed.

"But you're not sorry that you said it," he observed, catching the technicality in what Draco said. Draco shrugged, trying to force casualness into the motion.

"I won't apologize when I don't mean it," he said, and there was another wave of whispering. "I believe what I believe right now, and I can't apologize for thinking things, but I can apologize for how my actions affect people." Justin hesitated, and then nodded.

"Alright then. I accept your apology." Draco tried very hard not to smile at that—after seeing the Boy-Who-Lived accept Draco's apology—someone Justin had undoubtedly been told the importance of—how could he not have accepted?

"Thank you," said Draco, which he had planned to say, but, surprisingly, he found that he meant it. "Now, as for the rest of you-" He scanned the gathered students, many of them much older than himself, and he had to push down a tinge of intimidation before continuing. "I want an apology from you." This sent the group into an immediate uproar, and Draco let it continue for a moment before glancing to Cedric, who seemed to understand what he wanted.

"Shut up, you lot!" he hollered, and this effectively silenced them. "Let's hear him out." No one really looked happy, but many appeared curious, and so no one protested.

"Thank you, Cedric," said Draco calmly—far more calmly than he really felt, he realized as his heart continued to pound in his chest, because it really was intimidating to face off against _an entire __Hogwarts house_. "I want an apology not because of how you acted, but because of why. You weren't mad at me because I said something offensive, you were mad because you thought I proved your suspicions right. You thought that I was 'just like my father,' that I was a Slytherin, and not a Hufflepuff. Which, really, isn't very Hufflepuff of _you_, is it? So, I'd like an apology because I belong here just as much as you do, and you need to know that, or else it's going to be a really difficult seven years." There was stunned silence, and then Justin laughed.

"And they say the brave ones go to Gryffindor," he said, shaking his head, even though Draco didn't think he was very brave at all—he'd been terrified the whole time. "On behalf of all of us, I'm sorry—and I think I'm allowed to do that since I was the offended party." Justin held out his hand, and Draco stepped forward to shake it.

He finally allowed himself to smile when the voice in the back of his mind which sounded suspiciously like Lucius Malfoy only protested very, very quietly that he was touching a Mudblood.

After things had died down and Draco retook his seat, he noticed Cedric staring at him, and raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"That was brilliant," Cedric told him. Draco just smirked, and Cedric's expression became more amused than admiring. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?" drawled Draco.

"With your face," said Cedric. Draco raised an eyebrow. "That! And the not-really-a-smile thing."

"Malfoy trade secret," he said loftily, but Cedric sat forward eagerly.

"You just made a joke," he said, and Draco's brow furrowed. "That's the first thing I've heard you say this whole time which wasn't insanely serious. I'm impressed."

"I dunno, Cedric," said another fourth-year boy, "he did make that crack about the yellow ties." Cedric frowned thoughtfully.

"I thought he really meant that." He turned to Draco. "Did you?"

"You'll never know."

* * *

><p>Draco didn't exactly become fast friends with any of his yearmates—there was still a bit of awkwardness when he spoke to them—but the change was obvious. The other students looked at him with a bit more respect than they previously had, and Draco knew that he would eventually be accepted by them. At the moment, however, he was still a bit of a novelty. Just as he had when Cedric told him that he was different, Draco didn't really mind. He liked the attention.<p>

By lunch the next day, news of what had happened in the Hufflepuff common room after Draco's apology to Harry Potter and Ron Weasley had spread like fiendfyre in the middle of a forest. What had been normal conversation changed near-instantaneously to whispered gossip as he entered the Great Hall, and he rolled his eyes; he turned his attention to his house table, quickly calculating the fastest way to Hufflepuff-dom.

"Can I sit here?" he asked Justin, as the seat across the table from him was empty. Beside him, Ernie Macmillan looked tentative and Hannah Abbott still looked a bit standoffish, although she wasn't glaring with anywhere near the intensity she had during Herbology. Justin nodded, and Draco sat, raising an eyebrow at Justin's two friends. "I believe we have a conversation we never got to finish."

"Because you were a prat," said Justin, but there was nothing in his voice or expression to show that he was offended—in fact, he looked faintly amused.

"There's no need for name-calling," drawled Draco, and Justin laughed at the ironic joke.

Not far from them at the table, Cedric flashed Draco a smile and an awkward thumbs-up. Draco's lip curled at the gesture, and Cedric just laughed.

Things went smoothly the rest of the day. Draco didn't stay with Justin, Ernie, and Hannah the rest of the day, because there was only so much contact he could have with Justin before his inner Lucius voice protested too loudly to be ignored; all the same, his stunt the night before and sitting with Justin at lunch seemed to pay off, because he ended up in Transfigurations with Susan Bones on one side, whose mother, he found with relief, worked for the Ministry, and Zacharias Smith on his other side—he was also from magical parents. Draco found himself rather relieved, but still returned the smile Justin gave him when he entered the classroom.

Transfigurations went well enough; a Ravenclaw girl was the first to transfigure her needle back into a match, but Draco was second. Both students received two points for the effort.

Net points for Hufflepuff by Draco Malfoy: 0.

After class, however, Professor McGonagall stopped him from leaving, and he waited with a rather anxious feeling brewing in the pit of his stomach until the others had left, not knowing what it was he'd done wrong.

"Interesting news spreads quickly at Hogwarts, Mr. Malfoy," she said, "and so for your actions regarding your housemates last night and your actions towards my own house members, I award you five points to Hufflepuff for your courage."

He delivered a rather stunned thank-you to the professor, who merely smiled at him benevolently and sent him on his way.

Net points for Hufflepuff by Draco Malfoy: 5.

* * *

><p>Draco was less surprised and anxious when Professor Flitwick asked him to stay after Charms class the following day, and thought that he might know what was coming.<p>

"For your intelligent perception and judgment in what must have been a stressful situation," squeaked Professor Flitwick, "I award five points to Hufflepuff."

Net points for Hufflepuff by Draco Malfoy: 10.

He went to Potions this time with a definite spring in his step.

* * *

><p>"Stay," ordered Snape simply, and Draco nodded. He wasn't actually expecting points from Professor Snape, and so the nervousness which had hit him the first time McGonagall had called him over made a resurgent comeback. Draco waved off Susan's offer to wait for him outside the classroom and walked over to stand in front of Snape's desk. Now that the other students had gone, he could see exasperation and amusement in Snape's expression.<p>

"Even when you attempt to do something so simple as apologize," drawled Snape, "it becomes a spectacle. However, I'm fairly certain that's exactly what you intended, isn't it, Mr. Malfoy?" Draco looked away from the Potions Master to stare at a spot just over the man's right shoulder, the knowing dark gaze making him distinctly uncomfortable.

"I was proving a point," said Draco, grateful that his voice came out steady. Even though Snape was a friend of his father's, he was still rather scary.

"Proving a point," repeated Snape, his voice laden with rather caustic amusement now, "yes, I suppose you were. Professor Sprout didn't have to say a word to the others to get them to reward you for displaying traits of all of the houses—oh, yes, I've heard her pretty speech about the 'unity of Hufflepuff.'" Snape sneered, but strangely, it wasn't malicious, and Draco wondered if that's what it was like for Cedric when he made that face at the other boy. "Three points to Hufflepuff for your cunning, Mr. Malfoy, because I, too, have a point to prove." Draco's eyebrows rose in genuine surprise, and Snape's sneer twisted into a smirk. "Get out."

"Thank you, sir," said Draco, nodding regally at the man before grabbing his schoolbag and heading for the door.

"Have you heard from Lucius?" Draco's stride faltered, but he didn't look back, and pretended as he left the classroom that he'd never heard the question. He focused instead on how well everything had worked out for him, and smiled.

Net points for Hufflepuff by Draco Malfoy: 13.

* * *

><p>The rest of the week flew by. Each morning, Draco would be the first awake, and sit before the fire with Helga Hufflepuff. Sometimes Cedric would be the first down, and he'd grunt a greeting at Draco—he was never very coherent before his tea at breakfast in the morning—but after the nights where Cedric had been practicing out on the Quidditch pitch, he rarely got up early the next morning. Other mornings, he would nod to some other Hufflepuff—their suspicious looks were growing less and less frequent, and he felt that same spike of something happy, something pleasant.<p>

He went from class to class interacting with Justin—sometimes he marveled at how quickly the boy had forgiven him, but he chalked it up to the fact that the boy wouldn't have known what Mudblood meant at that time enough to be offended by it in the first place—and Susan Bones, and, where he could, Neville. Draco tried to avoid Zacharias Smith when he could—the boy was a bit arrogant, and while Draco knew he would've been a hypocrite had he really complained about it, the reminder of his Slytherin friends was too strong for Draco to feel comfortable around him.

On Saturday morning, he greeted a still-sleepy Cedric, and then left for breakfast in the Great Hall. On the staircase, however, he froze when he heard his name called.

"Malfoy!" He turned, and squinted at an older boy—older than Cedric, too—with dark hair and an ugly sneer.

"Marcus Flint," he said coolly, and nodded stiffly. He then turned, and then the staircase began to move. He groaned, not because he was in any real hurry to get to breakfast, but because it was quite bothersome to get to the Great Hall from the corridor the staircase was now leading them towards. Draco turned and started down the still-moving staircase, but when he reached Flint, he reached out and grabbed his arm roughly. Draco leveled a glare at him. "Unhand me. _Now_."

"We need to talk," said Flint—well, hissed, really, but the words and intonation weren't intimidating—what _was_ intimidating, however, was the grip on his arm rapidly growing stronger. Draco tried to pull away, but the other boy's grip went from startlingly firm to bruising.

"What do you want, then?" asked Draco, trying to keep the uneasiness and fear he felt from showing in his voice.

"I know that your father's gotten you professional Quidditch trainers for years, Malfoy," snapped Flint, "and if you're not playing for Slytherin, I can't have you playing." Draco stared at him incredulously.

"This is all just about Quidditch?" he asked. "You're _scared_ of a_ first-year_, Flint?" Perhaps it wasn't wise, he realized a moment later, to antagonize the other boy, because the next instant Flint was snarling, and drawing his arm back, his hand clenched in a fist, and-

"What's going on here?" Flint froze, and Draco felt the tension drain out of him in relief.

"None of your business, _Hufflepuff_," growled Flint, as though the house name itself was an insult. Draco felt righteous indignation flare up inside of him, but didn't get the chance to defend his house, because then Flint was shoving him away. Draco stumbled, and reached for the railing, but then Cedric was there with a hand on his shoulder, steadying him.

"Draco's in my house," replied Cedric stiffly, "and he happens to be my friend, so I think that it _is_ my business." Flint sneered at him, but didn't answer, instead looking to Draco. The first-year met his eyes belligerently, feeling suddenly far more confident with Cedric there.

"Careful, Malfoy," warned Flint. "Daddy won't save his Hufflepuff poofter for a son." Draco's initial reaction was anger, and then he was lunging forward, wanting to hit him, wanting to _hurt_ him, somehow. Cedric used both of his hands on either of Draco's shoulders then to restrain him.

"Quit making empty threats, Flint," snapped Cedric.

"What are you going to do about it, then, Diggory?" asked Flint, and Draco saw his hand straying towards his side, where his wand was. Draco tensed, and felt Cedric's hold on him tighten—but not painfully, as Flint's had, but more like a warning. "Going to snitch to that dumpy head of house of yours?"

"Professor Sprout is an excellent head of house," replied Cedric, his voice stiff but not confrontational, "and I _will_ tell her about this, if I have to." Flint's eyes narrowed, and Draco himself blinked in surprise. The way Draco had been raised, they were meant to handle their own problems, and so asking for help was essentially admitting defeat, conceding that your opponent was the better man.

"I'll see you on the pitch," said Flint, shoving past them to head back down the stairs, no doubt towards the dungeons. "Hufflepuff _cowards_." Before Cedric could stop him, Draco pulled out his wand and concentrated hard, whispering a spell. Flint tripped, and Draco quickly slipped his wand back into his robes.

"Draco!" exclaimed Cedric, and Draco could tell that it was supposed to be a reprimand, although the older boy's voice held too much humor to be stern. "You're lucky there were no professors around." Cedric frowned then, and shook his head. "Actually, it probably would've been better for you if there had been."

"No need," said Draco simply, and Cedric finally released his hold on Draco's shoulders. The two began walking in unison towards the Great Hall in unspoken agreement.

"Why's that?"

"You were there." Cedric glanced at him, grinning widely.

"What was it Flint wanted with you, anyway?" asked Cedric, and Draco shrugged.

"He knew that I've had lessons in flying and Quidditch before, and he was warning me off of trying out for the Hufflepuff team," said Draco casually as they entered the Hall and sat down at the nearly-empty Hufflepuff table; it was still too early for most of the students to have risen yet. "I guess he felt threatened, the big strong sixteen-year-old that he is." Cedric laughed, and then looked vaguely serious.

"So, are you actually that good?" he asked.

"I'm a good flyer," answered Draco, "and I can play most Quidditch positions fairly well. I'm not a _great_ Beater, and Father prefers it when I play as Seeker, but I'm best as a Chaser. It's not as if it matters, though—first-years aren't allowed brooms, or to be on the house teams." He caught sight of Cedric's contemplative look. "What?"

"Well, they're already making an exception to that rule," answered Cedric. "The Gryffindor Seeker graduated last year, and apparently Harry Potter's good enough to have an exception made."

"What?" repeated Draco, this time in shock instead of curiosity, and Cedric nodded.

"Yeah," he said, "I know. Apparently when the Gryffindors and Slytherins had their flying lesson together, some Slytherin—I think it might've been Nott—stole a Remberall from Neville Longbottom -" Draco frowned; why hadn't Neville told him about that? He made a mental note to ask later. "-and Potter went and caught it, right there out of the air, and Professor McGonagall saw, and now he's going to be Gryffindor's Seeker."

"So he is good for more than killing Dark Lords," said Draco lightly, and Cedric grinned, used to his friend's dark, often jeering sense of humor.

"Anyway," continued Cedric, "if they can make an exception for Harry Potter, and get him straight onto a team, then they can at least let you try out. It'd be like favoritism if they didn't, you know?" Draco grinned, and made a mental note to write home to ask for his broomstick after all.

* * *

><p>Draco had to endure try-outs using a rickety old Cleansweap owned by Hogwarts, and it pulled left, and it bucked once or twice. He'd seen Professor Sprout looking rather excited and satisfied in the stands, watching all of the try-outs, and when it had been his turn to try scoring goals against the established Hufflepuff keeper, Herbert Fleet, he'd seen his head of house surreptitiously giving him the same corny thumbs-up Cedric had earlier in the week.<p>

At the end of a rather grueling two hours, Draco had secured a spot as one of three Hufflepuff Chasers.

After putting the Cleansweep away, Draco started back up to the castle, smiling at his new teammates and getting patted on the back. He jumped as, for the second time that day, he heard his name called from behind him. Turning, he saw Snape standing in the shadows created by the stands of the Quidditch pitch.

"What _is_ it with Slytherins and sneaking up on people?" he snapped, too startled to really censor himself, but Snape merely raised an eyebrow at the outburst.

"I presume that you won't be flying all of your matches on that excuse for a broomstick?" said the Potions Master, and saw Draco hesitate. He'd intended to write home to ask for his broomstick, but that would undoubtedly require communication with his father. "With the vast Malfoy fortune, I'm quite certain your parents could afford a new one to send to you. Perhaps you should write to them." Draco glared at the man, but it was weak, and Snape merely smirked at him, knowing that he'd sensed the trouble correctly. "It really isn't a difficult task, Mr. Malfoy, and I can provide you with a parchment and quill should you fail to be able to find your own."

"I'll owl them in my own bloody time," said Draco, and Snape's eyebrows went up, his expression very amused.

"Language, Mr. Malfoy," he drawled. "As I said, Lucius will have to accept that you _are_ a Hufflepuff at some point, and it would be better to do it sooner, rather than later." Snape stepped closer to him, and looked him directly in the eye; there was something almost like compassion in the dark eyes, and it made Draco just as uncomfortable, somehow, as his other expressions. "Making the house team as a first-year is not a common occurrence, Mr. Malfoy. Perhaps you will be pleasantly surprised by how far this goes with Lucius. Good day."

* * *

><p>The first-floor East dining room was not the largest of those in the Manor, but its opulence was still intimidating to those who had never before encountered it. A long antique dining table dominated the room, polished to brilliant perfection, with an imposing stone fireplace behind the table. A chandelier hung down from the ceiling complete with candles charmed to light themselves whenever the room was entered. At that long table, however, only the head table and that to the left were set.<p>

Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were in the middle of their second course of dinner when the owl came. Lucius rose calmly to take the letter from the useless, sputtering house-elf Dobby, and felt his eyebrows raise as he read the address: _Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy_. Normally, with Draco, everything was "Lucius and Narcissa" and, when appropriate, "Father and Mother." It would appear, he thought idly to himself as he tore open the missive, that Draco was not yet through being petulant regarding his house placement and Lucius's failure to fix it.

"Is it from Draco?" asked Narcissa, clearly eager, and Lucius nodded. Narcissa's manners failed her as she shifted in her seat, waiting impatiently for her husband to read it and pass it on to her.

_Mother and Father:_

_ My studies are progressing well, and I expect to earn high marks in all of my subjects; I do find Astronomy to be rather dull, however, considering that I am being retaught information I learned at the age of six. Just the same, I have earned my house a total of 13 points so far._

_ I do not wish to bore you with the trite details of my school life, however, and so I'll get straight to the point. Quidditch try-outs were held today, and a special exception was made for me so that I could participate as well. I am now one of the Hufflepuff Chasers, and as it wouldn't do to have me riding one of the incredibly inadequate, ancient Cleansweeps the school provides when I have a perfectly good broom at home, I'd be much obliged if you would send it to me. Given the circumstances, an exception to the first-year broom ban has been made for me._

_Your son,_

_ Draco L. Malfoy_

Lucius silently handed the letter to his wife, and rose from the table. She looked at him curiously, pausing in her reading.

"I have business to attend to, Narcissa," he said, and headed for his study to compose an owl to the best broom shop in England.

Two days later, the entire Hufflepuff Quidditch team received the newest Nimbus 2000 broomsticks, only a few days before Harry Potter received his own.


	4. Chapter 4

"You didn't ask your father to send the brooms, did you?" Cedric asked, and Draco shook his head.

"I only requested the broom I'd been flying at home—I didn't even own a Nimbus 2000. Until this week, anyhow," said Draco with a shrug. They were at lunch, discussing what had become the hottest gossip at Hogwarts: Lucius Malfoy had sent the entire Hufflepuff team the best brooms available only days before, and this morning, Harry Potter had gotten one as well.

"We can't use them," said Cedric, sounding rueful and disappointed. Like any adolescent wizard, he would love the fastest broom, and he would love to _win_, but he was also a Hufflepuff, and had ingrained in him a strong sense of fair play.

Draco, however, did not.

"Why the bloody hell not?" asked Draco, even though they'd been having this same argument ever since they got the brooms.

"Don't swear," said Cedric, sounding weary, and Draco smirked, knowing that his older friend didn't really care. "It isn't fair to the other houses."

"But we'll _win_. We'll be better." Cedric shook his head.

"If we're going to win," he said patiently, but fervently, "we should do it on skill, not some other advantage."

"So you're telling me that you'd rather stick a top of the line broomstick in a cupboard and play with an ancient Cleansweep all because nobody else has them?" said Draco, despite having understood that this was Cedric's position quite some time ago. But even Hufflepuffs, he thought, would like to _win_, and so he hoped Cedric would come around.

"Exactly."

"That's... you're mental," said Draco, shaking his head and stabbing his food.

"It's fair," answered Cedric. "If everyone had a Nimbus, then I'd be game, but not everyone _does_."

"Potter does," Draco pointed out. "And I bet he'd use it even if nobody else had a Nimbus."

"It wouldn't matter if he did," the fourth-year insisted, "because _I_ want to play fair regardless of what Harry Potter's doing over in Gryffindor. This is Hufflepuff, Draco, and we play to _win_, but we want to do it on skill." Draco rolled his eyes, a slight scowl on his face, and then froze.

"If everyone had a Nimbus," he repeated slowly.

"It would be fair," nodded Cedric, "but not everyone will. Maybe even if he'd just sent one to you, it would be okay, but right now it's not." Draco stood, glancing at his watch. He had just enough time before class started, if he hurried. "What're you doing?"

"I'm making things fair."

Another two days later, a large flock of owl swooped down into the Great Hall at breakfast, dropping a long, thin parcel in front of every Quidditch player at Hogwarts. For a moment, there was only shocked silence, and then the players eagerly went to ripping off the packaging to reveal an entire set of Nimbus 2000 broomsticks. Cedric turned to Draco, who was smirking, looking very satisfied.

"Your parents-?" Draco nodded. "That must've cost a small fortune!"

"Yes, well, we're Malfoys," said Draco dismissively. "We don't have a _small_ fortune, we have rather a large one." For a moment Cedric said nothing, and then burst into laughter.

"You're such an arrogant prat," he said, and from anyone else, it might have been an insult, but Cedric's voice was too laden with amusement and a hint of affection for Draco to take him seriously. He just smirked.

"Yes," he sniffed haughtily, "I am. And now I'm an arrogant prat with a Nimbus 2000 who's going to beat the other teams into the ground." This time, the rest of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team joined in when Cedric laughed.

* * *

><p>The next two weeks passed quickly, and with far less awkwardness than the previous two for Draco. He was quite suddenly everyone's favorite person, in Hufflepuff as well as the other houses, because although he had not bragged about his father buying all of the Quidditch teams broomsticks, it was only because he hadn't needed to. Cedric had done it for him, and so everyone knew exactly who was responsible for the new broomsticks. It filled Draco with a sense of immense satisfaction each time he walked by a group of students and received a cheerful "hey, Malfoy," no matter which house they were from. He hadn't asked his father to send them all broomsticks to be fair, as Cedric liked to believe he had, but because there were a few main advantages to doing so, all of which Draco had considered before making the request to his father: Draco had, of course, wanted Hufflepuff to be able to use their brooms, which Cedric wouldn't have allowed unless they all had them, of course, but more than that, it was the fastest route he could see towards acceptance, and, more importantly, admiration and respect. It had worked.<p>

And, admittedly, the smiles and praise he got from his housemates and teachers for being "fair" was rather nice.

Despite all of this, one thing still bothered him. Although all four team sets of Nimbus broomsticks had, very obviously, been sent by Lucius and Narcissa in response to his letters, he had not heard from either of his parents since his mother's first letter. He wondered what that meant.

Fighting off his concerns, Draco prepared himself for his final detention with Professor Burbage.

The second and third detentions had passed much as the first had, with Draco grading quizzes and organizing papers, glancing over the questions and answers about people and events and objects he didn't have any hope of understanding. When he entered the classroom for that final detention, however, there was no stack of papers waiting on one of the desks, and he shut the door carefully.

"Please, sit," invited Professor Burbage, gesturing towards a chair in front of her desk that hadn't been there before; she must have conjured it. He sat, feeling rather wary as she smiled at him happily and offered him tea. He declined, and she shrugged and added milk and sugar to her own tea. "This is your last detention."

"Yes," agreed Draco simply, confused.

"It would have been hard to go through those papers without reading any of it, hmm?" she said, and his brow furrowed.

"I suppose," he drawled, and Professor Burbage smiled.

"It's a bit intriguing, though, isn't it?" she said, and he shrugged. She suddenly looked up at the ceiling, and he unconsciously mirrored the movement. "Floating candles—and yet Muggles don't have those enchantments, so how do they see at night, or in dark places?"

"Eclecticity," Draco answered without thinking, and then snapped his head down to stare at her. He didn't even know what that was, had only seen it on their papers, had no idea how it worked—but his innate desire to be right had gotten the better of him this time. Professor Burbage's smile grew.

"Electricity," she corrected gently. "I see you haven't been able to fully resist your curiosity about Muggles, and I'll tell you a secret." She leaned on the desk closer to him. "You don't have to."

"I wasn't curious," he snapped. "It was hard to go through those papers without reading anything, just as you said." There then came a rather indulgent quality to the professor's smile, and Draco scowled.

"You'll have the option to take this class in your third year," said Burbage, "and, if you still need the education on Muggles, I request that you think hard on it." Draco sneered at the idea, and then, just as he'd been trying not to for the past two weeks, he thought of Lucius, who was already too disappointed in his Hufflepuff son to talk to him—but Professor Burbage seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. "There is absolutely nothing your parents could say or do which should stop you from pursuing what you want here at Hogwarts, Draco. In fact, if either of your parents had taken Muggle Studies, I believe things would have turned out quite differently for everyone." She reached over the desk to pat his hand. "Do think on it, but don't feel rushed—you have two years before you need to choose, after all.

"For now, all I request is that you keep an open mind, and don't use offensive language. That's all, then, for our detentions—you're free to go."

* * *

><p>"Longbottom," groaned Draco, "if you made the potion the way your essay says, you wouldn't be making Swelling Solution, you'd be making goblin excrement." Neville's eyes widened, and then he himself groaned and dropped his head into his hands.<p>

"I'm hopeless, just hopeless! I'll never get it," said Neville, and Draco sighed. Neville loooked so pathetic, and it was stirring up... something in the pit of Draco's stomach—that something was _not_ sympathy or pity, he told himself, but in any case, he didn't like it, and he tried to ignore the voice which sounded suspiciously like Cedric in his head telling him he'd been mean to Neville. He looked back down at the essay, and suddenly sat up straighter.

"Your biggest mistake was adding the newt eyes before the cheeryfig roots," said Draco, a satisfied grin slowly spreading across his face, "when it's supposed to go after."

"Okay, alright," said Neville, reacting to his excitement, and then he paused. "What does that mean?"

"What are the properties of the cherryfig root?" asked Draco, and held his breath, hoping that Neville's skills in Herbology would finally pay off.

"Sweet to the taste, incredibly strong but dissolves in most potions, and takes in most venoms because the cherryfig tree has a symbiotic relationship with dark sprites who feed on the venomous leaves," rattled off Neville. "Why?"

"The roots absorb most venoms," said Draco, trying to lead Neville to the conclusion he already knew.

"Yes," said Neville. "That's what I just said."

"What goes in the potion right before the cherryfig roots?" asked Draco, and Neville frowned, his mouth moving as he recited the ingredients to himself.

"Asp venom," he answered finally, and then froze. "Venom! The cherryfig roots absorb the asp venom!"

"Yes," answered Draco, "so why would it be a mistake to put the newt eyes in first?"

"Because the venom reacting with the newt eyes would make everything explode or something!" shouted Neville, earning him a sharp "_quiet!_" from Madame Pince. He looked at Draco, flushed with embarrassment but still very excited, and Draco slid the essay back to him.

"Now," he said, "try it again." Draco sat back in his chair, giving himself a triumphant smirk, and caught sight of Professor McGonagall heading their way.

"That was a very good job, Mr. Malfoy," she said, giving him a smile. "I daresay Professor Snape may thank you himself later on, but for now, I award five points to Hufflepuff for aiding another student—and two to Gryffindor for Mr. Longbottom's excellent use of cross-curricular knowledge. Good day."

Draco's smirk grew even wider—between those five points and the two points he'd earned the week before, the score for net points for Hufflepuff earned by Draco Malfoy stood at 20. Neville was giving him a smile.

"Thanks," he said, and Draco shrugged awkwardly. "I... are you excited for the Halloween feast?" He blinked at the Gryffindor's abrupt change of topic.

"October hasn't even started yet," said Draco dully.

"I think I won't be very excited for Halloween," said Neville sadly, "because that means that it's getting towards winter, and winter means Christmas holidays, and that means I'll have to go home." Neville sounded very sad, and very worried, all traces of his earlier excitement gone. Draco set down his quill, no longer finding Charms quite as interesting.

"Why don't you want to go home?" asked Draco, frowning. Neville sighed.

"I love my gran," he started, somewhat defensive, "but I was really excited to come to Hogwarts, and so was she, because we thought I could finally live up to my parents, but I haven't done anything great yet."

"Neville," said Draco, blinking, "we're first years. We're not really expected to do much beyond float feathers in class." He winced as he remembered that Neville's first few days of attempts at _Wingardium Leviosa_ had been spectacularly unsuccessful. Neville didn't seem to notice.

"You and Harry made Quidditch teams, and you're first years," retorted Neville. "I fell off my broom and broke my arm. Gran's going to be really disappointed, I think." Draco stared at Neville, who had his head hung, staring at the floor, wringing his hands.

"My parents and I have hardly said anything to each other the entire time I've been here," he blurted out before he could think about what a bad idea it was to say that. Neville's head snapped up, though, and he stared at Draco in surprise.

"But your dad sent those brooms to everyone," said Neville, and Draco shrugged awkwardly.

"I wrote to ask him to send me my broom from home after I made the house team," explained Draco, "and he ended up sending brooms to everyone on the Hufflepuff team. But then... well, Cedric was saying that it wasn't fair, and he wasn't going to let us fly them, so I wrote and asked for brooms for all of the other teams, too. They sent those as well, but they never actually said anything to me."

Neville was frowning. "Why?"

"They're disappointed, I expect," said Draco, trying to sound casual, though his voice came out rather strained, and Neville's lips twitched up in an almost-smile at the parallel to his own worries. "I never expected to be in Hufflepuff. Father even came to see the Headmaster to demand that I be put in Slytherin."

"Wow," said Neville. "I'm sorry." Draco shrugged again. "Do you want to go home at Christmas?"

"I'm not sure," said Draco. Seeing the pitying look Neville was wearing, Draco scowled and stood, cramming his things back into his bag, angry for letting himself tell the other boy that just because he'd sat there and looked pathetic. "You will tell _no one_ what we talked about, alright?"

"Er, alright," agreed Neville, looking dazed. "And thanks."

* * *

><p>Draco spent October frustrated and angry. He was bothered by the continued silence between himself and his parents, and he was bothered by the fact that he'd told Neville about it—so much so, in fact, that he began to avoid the other boy, and he was bothered by the way Cedric seemed concerned about him, and he was bothered by the way he was actually stressed by having Quidditch practice on top of all of his schoolwork when Harry Potter seemed to be doing just fine with it all, and he was bothered by the fact that all of his childhood friends who were now in Slytherin without him were no longer speaking to him. Most of all, though, he was bothered by the fact that he was bothered at all.<p>

The majority of the goodwill the other houses had felt towards him seemed to disappear in the face of his frustration as he lashed out with sneers and smirks, but none of them were outright mean to him, and he never began a confrontation.

He struggled his way through October until, finally, Halloween finally came. Draco greeted his housemates politely, if a bit stiffly, grateful, at least, that Justin and his friends didn't seem bothered by his temper—then again, it could have something to do with having already been on the receiving end and coming out fine. Draco sat by himself, barely noticing the bats swooping down low over the tables; he was not quite at the end of the table, and despite the assortment of incredibly good-looking foods, he found that he just wasn't hungry. Instead of focusing on his food, he found his eyes straying first towards the Gryffindor table, where Neville sat near Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, and the three had their heads bent together, and while Harry looked remorseful and Neville looked worried, Ron's expression was somewhere between the two. Neville started to look in his direction, and Draco pulled his gaze away. He looked at the Slytherin table.

Pansy was sitting next to Millie, Theodore Nott, and Blaise Zabini. Draco smiled to himself as he remembered his eleventh birthday only months ago. His father had given his mother free reign over the party, and half of the wizarding elite ended up in the ballroom of Malfoy Manor to celebrate an eleven-year-old's birthday. It had been rather garish, because Narcissa rarely knew when something was too much, and Draco had escaped to the gardens with his four friends. Narcissa had been furious when he'd gotten his dress robes dirty, but had quickly calmed—it was his birthday, after all.

Just as Neville had, Pansy seemed to feel his eyes on her, because she looked up, staring straight at him. He smiled at her, and she held his gaze for a long moment before looking back to the three other Slytherins. She hadn't returned his smile.

Draco looked back down at his food, sighing heavily. He was considering pulling out the book on Helga Hufflepuff again—even though he was very nearly finished with it—or just leaving altogether when Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. Everyone stared as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, "Troll—in the dungeons—thought you ought to know."

He then sank to the floor in a dead faint.

There was an uproar. It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore's wand to bring silence.

"Prefects," he rumbled, "lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!"

Draco followed the pack of Hufflepuffs very closely this time, his heart hammering in his chest with fear. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harry and Ron stop, murmuring seriously to each other, and then try to subtly go off in a different direction than the rest of Gryffindor house. Draco frowned, but he was nowhere near stupid—or brave—enough to go off on his own when there was a troll wandering around the castle, so he waited until he was inside the common room to sit down and take a moment to think everything over.

There was a troll inside the school. That in itself was troublesome, because the wards were supposed to keep such creatures from entering, so the fact that the troll was there was an indication that either the wards at Hogwarts had been weakened, or someone had helped the troll get into the school. Neither thought was very appealing to Draco.

The Gryffindor golden boys had left their group when there was a troll about. That either made _them_ stupid or brave, or, thought Draco as his brow furrowed, suspicious. Perhaps they were taking advantage of the moment to do something they weren't supposed to do—like going to the third-floor corridor. Draco filed that away for future thought.

"There's food, you know," Cedric told him, interrupting his thoughts. He himself was holding a plate laden with the delicious looking foods which had only minutes before been upstairs in the Great Hall. "Aren't you hungry?"

"Not really," murmured Draco, and Cedric sat down next to him. They were in a corner which, being rather far from the fireplace, was not widely frequented, and so gave Draco the space he needed not to lash out at anyone.

"What's going on with you, Draco?" asked Cedric. "You've been acting odd ever since the beginning of the month."

"It's nothing," said Draco dismissively. "I just have a lot on my mind."

"If you're really that stressed, we can have someone step in for you on the team," offered Cedric kindly, although Draco knew somehow that Cedric didn't really want him to quit. Draco shook his head.

"No, Quidditch is my stress _relief_," he said, and Cedric's lips twitched into a relieved smile.

"What is it then? Really?" persisted Cedric, and Draco looked away from his friend. "The troll scared me, you know." The first-year's eyes immediately snapped back to Cedric's face, wider than they had been before.

"What?" he asked dumbly, and Cedric grinned.

"Yeah, completely," he said. "I've heard stories about them gnawing peoples' limbs off, and if that happened to me, I couldn't play Quidditch." Draco hit Cedric lightly on the shoulder, rolling his eyes. "Seriously, though. There were a few moments of real fear there for me."

"You don't seem like you're ever scared of anything," said Draco, and he couldn't stop the small bit of jealousy which leaked into his voice. "You always seem brave."

"Being brave isn't about never being scared," Cedric told him. "It's about being scared and doing what you know you should anyway." Draco frowned, taking a moment to think that over.

"That doesn't make any sense at all," he decided, and Cedric laughed.

"Maybe someday it will," he answered, and then stood. "I get that you don't really want to talk about it right now, but when you do, I'll listen."

"Thank you," said Draco; over the past two months at Hogwarts, gratitude and remorse were two emotions he was slowly becoming more familiar with, and there was little hesitation now when he said the words. Cedric grinned at him.

"That's what friends are for," he said. "And Draco?"

"Yeah?"

"At least _try_ to have fun, okay? Maybe you'll even make some new friends." Cedric clapped Draco on the shoulder, and moved off towards his own friends. Draco scanned the room, and his eyes found Justin Finch-Fletchley almost automatically. Without giving himself time to really think about what he was doing, he stood, and pushed his way through the crowd of Hufflepuffs towards the Mud—the Muggleborn.

The Lucius-voice in his head screeched and screamed at him all through the evening until, at last, he roared back at it to _shut up_. Even though Draco felt rather uneasy, it was silent for the rest of the evening.


	5. Chapter 5

Professor Sprout asked Draco to stay after class during their next Herbology class, and he wondered just what he'd done this time. He'd managed to net Hufflepuff 22 points by that time, and he couldn't recall doing anything wrong. Despite his nerves, he did his best to look nonchalant as he waited for the other students to clear out of the greenhouse. When they did, Professor Sprout took a seat near where he was already seated, looking at him with a small smile on her face.

"Relax, Mr. Malfoy," she said cheerfully, "you're not in trouble." Draco scowled—his acting used to be much better. Well, it was either that or his Slytherin friends were liars. He could believe either, really. "I've been noticing that you're having some difficulty again with your housemates, although it's been getting better over the past few days."

"I suppose," answered Draco, managing to keep his voice neutral this time.

"What was the trouble about in the first place?" she asked, her voice kind and gentle. Draco shrugged, and settled on telling her the most harmless version of the truth.

"I was a bit stressed," he said, "while I learned how to balance Quidditch with everything else. But it's better now." Professor Sprout studied him for a moment, and he had to try very hard not to squirm under her scrutinizing gaze, but finally she nodded, her smile widening as she accepted this explanation.

"Very good," said the professor approvingly. "You're good friends with Cedric, I've noticed, which must help some." Draco nodded, because again, this was a rather innocuous truth. Even so, Sprout's gaze turned rather serious, and her smile receded again to her simple perpetual slight upturn of the lips. "I've heard that you and your parents aren't speaking, even though they sent those Nimbus 2000 broomsticks." Draco scowled.

"And who might you have heard this from, Professor?" he asked, voice tense but unfailingly polite. She smiled at him again.

"I realize that it will take time before you feel that you can come to me, as your head of house," she said, "and I believe it is good that you have a preexisting relationship with a member of the faculty, but perhaps you should try forming new relationships."

"Professor Snape told you, then," Draco said flatly, and Sprout nodded. "Why?"

"He is concerned," she said simply. "As am I. Family is always important, but in your case, perhaps moreso than usual. Is there anything we can do to help things along?" Draco blinked, somewhat surprised. Instead of owling his parents directly, or ordering him to owl them, she was simply asking how she could help him. After a moment, he decided that he shouldn't have been surprised; this was Hufflepuff, after all.

"Not particularly," he said, and then rushed to add after a short pause, "thank you."

"Well, between the two of us," she said, a conspiratorial glint in her eye, "Professor Snape has already given your parents the season Quidditch schedule. I suspect at least one of your parents will be attending your first match, at the very least. Perhaps things will come easier in person."

Draco felt his heart lurch painfully in his chest. He felt a sense of excitement and outright anticipation at the thought of his parents coming to see _him_, just for him, but he also felt the too familiar feeling of fear. What if Hufflepuff didn't win that match? What if he didn't score any goals? What if he got hit by a bludger? What-

"Mr. Malfoy, I'm sure they will be quite excited to see you play no matter the outcome," reassured Professor Sprout, and Draco internally cursed himself again for becoming so transparent. That, he supposed, was what spending so much time with emotional Hufflepuffs would do to well-honed, time-honoured Slytherin masks.

"Of course," he simply agreed, wiping any trace of fear from his face. He saw Sprout blink in surprise, just as he had done moments earlier, and he resisted the urge to smirk.

"Have you contacted your cousin, Nymphadora?" asked Sprout, and Draco shook his head. "Do think about it. I remember her—very clumsy, but also a very bright, talented, and caring girl. There'd be no harm in sending an owl, hmm?" Privately, Draco disagreed; if either of his parents found out that he was owling his half-blood cousin, then he might be in quite a bit of trouble.

Outwardly, he nodded, maintaining his calm front. "Of course," he said again. "May I go now, Professor?"

* * *

><p>Draco was sitting in his usual spot near the end of the Hufflepuff table, savoring the last few pages of Hufflepuff's biography and eating absentmindedly whatever his fork brought to his mouth, and then he heard someone clearing their throat, and looked up.<p>

"Neville," he said, surprised. "What are you doing?"

"Well, I thought if you can go up to the Gryffindor table, then I can come to the Hufflepuff one, don't you think?" asked Neville, trying to joke, even as he shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, glancing around as though he feared that at any moment the other Hufflepuffs were going to rise up and drive him away from the table. Draco rolled his eyes at the other boy's behavior.

"Yes," he said, "but what do you want?"

"I was going to apologize," said Neville, the echo of Draco's own words not lost on him as he grinned at the blonde, "but then I realized that I'm not really sure what I'd be apologizing _for_. I mean, we were getting on just fine, and then we had that conversation—was that it? It was really personal, I know, but I already promised that I wouldn't talk about it." Draco felt the customary tense beginnings of a headache rising in his temple—this happened frequently when dealing with Neville.

"Just forget it," said Draco.

"Does that mean we can be friends again?" He started at Neville's words, freezing in place. _Friends_, Neville had called them. He wasn't sure he knew what that meant anymore; Pansy, Millicent, Theodore, Blaise, Crabbe, Goyle—they were _supposed_ to be his friends, but then he became a Hufflepuff and none of them so much as gave him a hello after he declined to try being resorted. Then there was Cedric, who defended him when Flint had threatened him, and defended him against their own house—was that a true friend? Cedric had called them that as well—but then, what did he do for Cedric? "Er, you look really... troubled. Should I come back later? Have I done something wrong?"

"No," sighed Draco, and then he looked Neville in the eye. He saw hope, there—and past Neville, still at the Gryffindor table, the Golden Duo had expanded to become a Golden Trio and were now all staring at him, and he felt the eyes of the staff table on him, too... "I... yes. We can be friends again." Neville sagged visibly in relief, and gave Draco one of the widest smiles he'd ever seen.

"That's great," said the Gryffindor boy. "I'm really having trouble with this Gryndylow Essence Solution. Maybe we could meet in the library after class tonight?"

"I have Quidditch practice," said Draco, and, seeing Neville looking a little sad, he added, "tomorrow? After lunch?" Neville nodded eagerly, and went to go back to his own table, tripping a bit over his own feet as he did. Shaking his head, Draco turned back to his book, studiously ignoring the stares of everyone else in the Hall.

Instead of reading, he just scowled at the pages, thinking over what had happened already that day. He'd been unable to hide what he was thinking from Sprout, and then he'd been so easily manipulated by Neville's emotions that it was... well, it was scary and disgusting, and he was actually starting to consider owling this Nymphadora cousin of his.

What was _wrong_ with him? And, more importantly, what would his father say?

* * *

><p>"Merlin, Potter is <em>good<em>." Cedric shot Draco an amused look, but it was clear that he felt the same way. The two were sitting in the stands at the first Quidditch match of the season: Slytherin vs. Gryffindor. They'd watched—just as everyone else had—as Harry Potter and Slytherin's Seeker, Terence Higgs, went after the Snitch, hurtling along at insane speeds. Despite the fact that both Seekers were flying Nimbus 2000 broomsticks, Potter was faster—which made sense, figured Draco, since the first-year boy was smaller and lighter than Higgs, but that was only part of the explanation. Potter was a natural flyer. They'd cringed when Flint had purposely blocked Potter's path, stopping him from reaching the Snitch first, and Cedric had started yelling "foul" just as angrily and loudly as the Gryffindors had.

"I'm glad that I'm not going head to head with him as Seeker," drawled Draco once that bit of excitement was over, and Gryffindor Chaser Alicia Spinnet took the penalty shot at Slytherin's goal posts. Cedric gave him a half-hearted glare and shoved him lightly, since he _was_ the Seeker going head to head with Harry Potter soon enough.

"We play Ravenclaw first," said Cedric, "so we'll have time yet before I have to fly with him."

"Time for what?" asked Draco. "More practice? We've already run every play we have at _least _two dozen times."

"And I'm sure we'll run them another two dozen," answered Cedric mildly, only grinning when Draco groaned dramatically next to him. Then he frowned. "What's Potter doing?" Draco followed Cedric's gaze and saw that the Gryffindor Seeker's broom was going higher and higher, making zig-zags and lurching violently, the boy struggling to stay on his broomstick.

"It looks like he's lost control," said Draco. Potter's broom gave a wild jerk and he swung off of it. He was now dangling from it, holding on with only one hand. Cedric stood, obviously wanting to _do something_, and Draco grabbed his arm. The older boy glanced at him, and then sat back down, his entire body still tensed. Draco, however, wasn't nearly so worried; not only were almost all of the teachers in attendance, but _Dumbledore_ was there, too. If the worst happened, and Potter did fall, then Dumbledore could levitate him or use some spell to conjure up a fluffy mattress beneath him or something. He said so to Cedric even as they watched the two Weasley beaters begin circling below Potter, hoping to catch him should he fall.

"You're not the least bit stressed out by all this?" asked Cedric incredulously. "For the broom to be tampered with would take Dark Magic, the kind no student could pull off. It had to have been an adult." Oh. Draco hadn't thought of that, and it made him very, very uncomfortable. He began looking at the faculty rather than Harry Potter, but he hadn't brought any binoculars, and so he couldn't see anything anyway. His heart gave a sickening lurch as it occurred to him that Potter was flying a Nimbus 2000, just like the brooms his father had sent. Although Potter had gotten his before everyone except the Hufflepuff team, and he hadn't gotten it from Lucius Malfoy, what if it had been switched? What if whomever Lucius had bought the brooms from had put some sort of enchantment on it?

"Maybe it's a little stressful," admitted Draco, his voice strained. Cedric gave him a quizzical look, but then the crowd was cheering—Potter had managed to climb back on his broomstick. He was speeding towards the ground when he clapped one hand to his mouth as though he was about to be sick—Draco didn't blame him; he'd probably be sick, too, after a shake-down like that—Potter hit the field on all fours—coughed-and something gold fell into his hand.

"I've got the Snitch!" he shouted, waving it above his head, and the game ended in complete confusion.

An hour later, Draco had too much adrenaline pumping through him to calm down and work on his assignments, and so he decided to take a walk around the castle, exploring. Neville had shown him once where Gryffindor tower's entrance was, behind a portrait of a rather large woman named, appropriately, the Fat Lady, but Draco had not actually seen where the Ravenclaw dormitory was. He decided very purposefully not to think of the Slytherin dormitory.

Draco had gotten up a few flights of stairs to the fifth floor and was on the middle of a staircase which would take him to the sixth when he heard his name called. Without stopping to see who it was, he raced up the stairs to the corridor, hearing footsteps behind him signaling that whoever it was had come after him. He turned.

"Potter," he greeted. The other boy glanced back at the staircase, and then to Draco again, looking confused. Draco shrugged. "I don't like being cornered on staircases."

"Okay then, Malfoy," answered Potter, shrugging at him and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose rather awkwardly. There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Potter cleared his throat. "Er, Quidditch is exciting, isn't it?" Draco snorted.

"Normally not quite _that_ exciting, I don't believe," he said, giving Potter a look somewhere between a smirk and a sneer. The dark-haired boy squirmed. "I doubt you chased me down just to make small talk about Quidditch. What do you really want?"

"I... um. You know Snape pretty well, right?" asked Potter, and Draco blinked several times, thrown by the sudden change in topic.

"I suppose," answered Draco slowly.

"Yeah, okay, good," said Potter quickly. "What do you think of him?"

"He's been rather helpful to me so far," he said with a shrug, "but then I've also heard from Neville that he can be rather terrifying at times. But it's also _Neville_, and he's scared of lots of things, so I'm not sure what I think about that. Why?"

"He jinxed my broom during the match," said Potter, and Draco had to fight down his immediate, instinctual urge to laugh in incredulity.

"Why would Snape do that?" asked Draco.

"Maybe he wanted to kill me," suggested Potter, and Draco frowned at how... casually the other boy seemed to be taking all of this.

"And why would he want to do _that_?" said Draco.

"He hates me," said Potter simply, as though that were a perfectly rational, valid explanation for premeditated murder.

"I hate Marcus Flint and Millie's father," retorted Draco, "that doesn't mean that I'm going to kill them. Besides, Dumbledore was there!"

"Yeah, well, do you have another explanation for what happened?" asked Potter, and against his will Draco thought about the set of Nimbus 2000 broomsticks and possible hexes and- "Hermione saw his lips moving, and he was staring at me—he wasn't blinking, and she says you have to do that to jinx someone."

"That is interesting," admitted Draco, "but I hate to break it to you, Potter: you have to do that, too, when you're trying to _counter_ a jinx." Potter blinked, looking as though he hadn't thought of that.

"Hermione didn't tell me that," said Potter, and Draco rolled his eyes.

"Jinxes are the chapter before counter-jinxes in the Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook," he said flatly. "She probably hasn't gotten there yet." Potter's eyes narrowed at the slight mocking tone in his voice, but he continued anyway.

"But why would Snape try to save me?" asked Potter. "I mean, he let the troll into the school on Halloween and tried to get past the three-headed dog-" His eyes widened and he clenched his jaw.

"There's a cerberus in the school?" asked Draco, feeling his heart begin to race again. "There's a _cerberus_ in the school? They're vicious, and horrible, and they _kill on_ _sight_! Tell me where it is, Potter, so I can be sure to stay far, far _away_ from it!"

"Er." Potter looked very guilty, and Draco suddenly put the pieces together.

"No," he said, "you didn't! You went to the third-floor corridor." Draco's mouth twisted into a sneer. "Then again, I shouldn't be surprised—you did _laugh_ at Dumbledore's warnings of a 'painful death.' The boy who survived the Killing Curse probably isn't afraid of _that_, of course-"

"Shut up, Malfoy," snapped Potter, and then both boys were silent. Potter took a deep breath, calming himself before speaking again. "Look, it was an _accident_. We didn't realize what floor we were on, and I only laughed at the feast because I thought he was joking."

"Right, fine, say I believe you," said Draco, rolling his eyes, "for the sake of my curiosity. What makes you think that Snape let the troll in on Halloween and went to the third-floor corridor?"

"Ron said trolls are too stupid to get in on their own, and so they need someone to help them, and then when we talked to Hermione, we realized that Snape went off on his own, and we realized the troll was a distraction," said Potter. "I even know for certain that Snape tried to get past the dog because I saw him and Filch in the staffroom when I went to get a book back that he'd taken from me, and he was bandaging up his leg, and complaining about trying to watch all of its heads at once." He said all of that last sentence in one long rush of breath, and it took Draco a moment to decipher exactly what he'd said. "Haven't you noticed he's been limping?"

"What if," countered Draco, "Snape went there to make sure that no one _else_ was trying to use the troll as a distraction? That would explain why he'd gone there _and_ why he'd try to save you."

"That's a lot of 'if's, Malfoy," pointed out Harry, and Draco outright laughed at that.

"Yes," he said, "because the _simpler_ explanation is that one of the heads of house at this school, a man trusted by the headmaster who is supposed to be the greatest wizard of the age, tried to kill the school's new celebrity because he hates you." Potter was frowning at that.

"Well, maybe there's some other reason he would want me dead?" asked Potter, and Draco groaned, but Potter was already barreling on. "I mean, there are actually probably plenty of people who want me dead, aren't there? Since Voldemort had followers, and he's dead because of me, and—what?"

"Potter," ground out Draco, "_don't say his name_."

"But-"

"And do you realize what you're suggesting?" screeched Draco, suddenly feeling very, very upset. "You're accusing _one of our professors _of being an evil Dark Wizard and trying to commit _murder_! Those are really serious things to say, you can't just go around making wild guesses because you think that someone hates you!"

"But-"

Draco stormed off, not wanting to hear the rest of what Harry Potter had to say about Death Eaters and the Dark Lord. He'd heard enough about that during his childhood, in hushed whispers around the Manor when Father had his friends over—and besides, the Dark Lord was dead. None of it mattered anymore anyway.

* * *

><p>During Potions class two days later, Draco purposely dawdled when putting his things away. He promised to meet Neville and Susan in the library once he was finished, and hoped that they would leave him there—they did. Once everyone else had left, Draco waited silently in front of Snape's desk for the man to be finished with whatever it was he was looking at.<p>

"What do you want, Mr. Malfoy?" asked Snape without looking up.

"What in the name of Merlin," began Draco, sounding more... _emotional_ than he really intended or wanted, but he went on regardless, "is a _cerberus doing in a school full of children_?" Snape's head snapped up, and he fixed Draco with a murderous glare.

"You went to the third-floor corridor," he hissed, "which is _explicitly forbidden_."

"No!" protested Draco quickly. "No, it wasn't me. I heard what was there from—from someone else." Snape's glare held, and then there was that same intensely uncomfortable feeling that someone was looking around inside his head, and then Snape nodded.

"Potter, I presume?" His voice dripped venomous hate, and Draco blinked.

"Perhaps," he said, knowing that Snape would—correctly-take that as an admission of Potter's guilt. "Anyway. Don't you think it's a little _dangerous_ to have a vicious beast in a school?"

"The vicious beast, as you say, is very well sealed in the third-floor corridor, and we did warn the students," said Snape simply. "Anyone going there must either have a death wish or a terminal lack of intelligence, neither of which is any business of mine." Draco shivered slightly at the coldness of the words, but persisted.

"But why is it there in the first place."

"That, Mr. Malfoy, is no business of _yours_," replied Snape. "If there is nothing else-"

"There is," Draco answered, and Snape closed his eyes briefly as he took a deep breath, seemingly steeling himself for the rest of the conversation. Draco wasn't sure whether he felt amused or mildly insulted.

"Go on."

"Potter thinks you're a Death Eater or something." Snape suddenly displayed more emotion in the ensuing seconds than Draco had ever seen from him before—surprise was first, and then something like regret, and then anger, where he tended to settle.

"Why?" he ground out.

"Well, at the Quidditch match, when Potter's broom went out of control, apparently they saw your lips moving and you staring at Potter like you were jinxing him," explained Draco, "and he seemed stuck on the idea that you were trying to kill him even after I told him that's how you make counter-jinxes work, too. Anyway, that's when he told me that he thought you'd let the troll in as a distraction to try to get past the cerberus-" Again, Snape appeared surprised. Draco noted it for future reference, and then continued. "-and that's when he told me that he thought you might want him dead because you could be one of the Dark Lord's followers."

"I see," said Snape flatly after his monologue. "And why are you telling me this?"

"There's a cerberus in the school, Potter's broom got jinxed or hexed or something because someone was trying to kill him, and Dumbledore's already made an ominous death-related warning. Potter might have laughed at that, but _I_ didn't. I really don't want to be involved." Snape's lips twitched upwards in a near smile, and then he nodded.

"Thank you, Mr. Malfoy," he said. "Now get out."


	6. Chapter 6

"Good morning—well, good evening, actually." Draco groaned, the voice seeming loud and tinny in his ears. He tried to curl up on the bed, tugging the blankets over his head, but then froze.

There was one pillow, not two, and the sheets felt strangely starched instead of the soft, thousand-count Egyptian cotton his mother had sent with him to Hogwarts. This wasn't his bed.

His eyes flew open at that realization, and the first thing he noticed was Cedric looking down at him—his older friend must have been the one talking to him. Cedric was wearing his Quidditch robes, and looked windswept and ecstatic. Groaning again, because his head was _pounding_, he struggled to a sitting position.

"What happened?" he asked, frowning. "I remember the first bit of the match—we were losing, and then you'd gone chasing after the Snitch, but nothing else."

"You got hit in the head by a bludger," answered Cedric. "It was really nasty. Before that, though, while I was chasing the Snitch, you managed to score four goals, and helped Brighton score a fifth. It was absolutely incredible, you know—but then you got hit. The Ravenclaws caught the Snitch then, but because we scored so much near the end, we had 210 points to their 200."

"We won?" said Draco in disbelief. Cedric nodded, smiling, looking giddy.

"We won!" he confirmed, and then Draco was sporting a smile to match Cedric's. "You know, I think that's the first time I've seen you actually smile, not that other not-quite-a-smile thing that you do."

"Shut it," said Draco, but any sting was taken from his words by the smile still on his face. "I'm enjoying our victory."

"Ah, Mr. Malfoy, you're awake." Draco looked over to see Madame Pomfrey heading towards them, shooing Cedric away. "I need a moment with Mr. Malfoy."

"I just wanted to let you know," Cedric told him, and Draco nodded, wishing he hadn't when the pounding he'd momentarily forgotten in his excitement returned forcefully. Cedric waved, and then he was gone.

"How long was I out?" Draco asked the Healer as she began performing diagnostic spells.

"It's now eight o'clock, and you were knocked out cold around two-thirty," she said, and then paused to examine the results of her spells. "It's as expected—you have a slight concussion. I'm guessing you have a rather severe headache?"

"Yes."

"Drink this." She shoved a goblet of potion into his hands, and he peered at it doubtfully for a moment, taking in the rather unappealing texture and green colour before drinking it with a grimace. "Good." She took it from him and stalked off, and Draco laid back against his pillow carefully. He stared at the ceiling, looking at its cracks and where the shadows from the candles fell, and then Draco realized that his eyelids were becoming progressively harder to keep open.

"What-?" he managed to slur, and Madame Pomfrey shushed him.

"It was a combination of a pain reliever and Dreamless Sleep," she told him, and he tried to scowl, but knew that he wasn't because his muscles just seemed not to be cooperating. "You'll be spending the night here, and you won't be released until your afternoon classes tomorrow. Goodnight, Mr. Malfoy."

As he gave up and closed his eyes, Draco remembered that he hadn't seen either of his parents in the stands, but he had noticed a rather excitable looking woman sitting between Snape and his own head of house, decked out in yellow and sporting brilliantly pink hair. His last thought before falling asleep was that he probably should feel fortunate that neither Lucius nor Narcissa had been there to see him mess up like that, but for some reason, he didn't.

* * *

><p>Getting hit in the head with a bludger after scoring forty points for Hufflepuff was, while not something Draco would care to repeat anytime soon, fairly worth it, in the end.<p>

He was released, as Madame Pomfrey had promised, in time for lunch and then his afternoon classes, and as he walked down to the Great Hall, the hype from the Nimbus 2000 sets seemed to have returned as he was greeted enthusiastically by almost everyone he came across in the corridors—everyone who wasn't in Slytherin, it seemed. When he sat down in what had become his customary seat at the Hufflepuff table, he was unsurprised when Neville came over, and only mildly surprised when Harry Potter followed.

"That was really something, Draco," said Neville, shaking his head. Draco smirked. "I mean, you got hit, and then you just dropped like a stone!"

"I've got to agree with Neville," said Potter, nodding, a small grin on his face. "That was almost as exciting as someone trying to kill me during our match." Draco outright laughed at that, and Potter looked pleased. "And, um, speaking of someone trying to kill me, do you think we could continue that conversation we were having earlier? Maybe in the library after class?" Draco shrugged.

"I suppose so," he assented easily, and Potter nodded.

"Great, I'll see you there, then." Neville stood there awkwardly for another moment, and Draco raised an eyebrow at him.

"Do you want to sit down?" he drawled, as though this were the obvious course of action and Neville was rather thick for not having figured that out. The Gryffindor flushed red.

"I, well, is that okay? I mean, I'm a Gryffindor and this isn't my table."

"Honestly, Neville," he said, "just sit." Neville did so awkwardly, glancing around the table at the others seated there. Several of the first-years sitting nearby smiled and gave him cheery "hello"s, and Neville suddenly looked much happier. Draco just rolled his eyes again.

As they ate, Draco explained their newest Potions assignment to his friend, who scrawled messy notes over a piece of parchment with one hand as he ate with the other. The two were beginning to reluctantly pack up in preparation to leave for Transfigurations—both shuddered at the thought of being late—when an unfamiliar owl swooped down and left a letter before Draco.

"That's odd," said Neville conversationally. It was odd indeed—most owl post came in the morning, as one large group, but then again, Draco had been still asleep in the infirmary when the owl post had come. He turned the letter over to look at the front, which simply read "Draco Malfoy" in a very untidy script Draco didn't recognize.

"I'll read it later," he decided aloud, and shoved it into his pocket. "Come on—we'll have to hurry to be on time."

* * *

><p>Potter was certainly taking his time getting to the library, Draco thought with a scowl. They hadn't set an exact time to meet, he knew, but it was still rather irritating to be kept waiting for so long. Draco sighed loudly, receiving glares from those in the library around him. He slid down slightly in his chair, and then thought of the letter still in his pocket. Why not?<p>

He ripped it open unceremoniously, and then unconsciously his expression grew more and more troubled as he read.

_Draco,_

_ I wanted to meet you on Sunday at your Quidditch match, but, well, you were sort of unavailable afterward, weren't you? That was a wicked accident, by the way—and in your first match, too, but don't worry, because even Oliver Wood took a bludger to the head his first match, and he was out for a whole week!_

_ Anyways, you might have seen me in the stands—I was probably sort of hard to miss, what with my pink hair. I'm a metamorphagus, though, so it isn't always pink. I have to change it back to brown when I'm taking my Auror training classes, because Mad-Eye—sorry, that's Alastor Moody—can be kind of a grouch about these sorts of things._

_ I'm rambling now, though, aren't I? I just wanted to tell you that I think it's amazing that you're in Hufflepuff, too. I never would have expected that from Narcissa's son (though I'm sure you're pretty sick of hearing that by now, huh?). It's just that the few times I met Aunt Cissy as a child she was always very prim and proper and turning her nose up at anything that wasn't high society or Slytherin, you know. Not to say that I didn't like her, or that I thought she wasn't nice. She was fine, really, I just felt a little tense because it was obvious she didn't like my dad, and that she was angry at my mum for marrying him. When you were born, though, I think it was Lucius who told your mum to stop seeing us. Not to say that _he's_ bad, either, but I'm sure you get the point._

_ I'll try to come back for your next match, and we can actually meet then instead of me seeing you get clobbered by a bludger and you seeing me howl "HUFFLEPUFF" from the stands like some sort of banshee. Do think about writing me, though, because I think it'd be fantastic to get to know you, cos._

_ Oh, and _don't_ call me Nymphadora. I hate that._

_-Tonks_

Draco was still frowning at the letter when he heard more than saw Potter sit down across from him at the table.

"Sorry," apologized Potter, sounding out of breath, as though he had just run to get there, "but 'Mione and Ron and I got lost trying to get back to Gryffindor to put our stuff away—we don't usually, you know, but we were down near the dungeons, and we don't know that area very well."

"Why were you down there?" asked Draco, putting the letter aside to focus on the current conversation; it was far easier, he'd found the past few months, to simply not think about things that were bothering him.

"Doesn't matter," said Potter, trying for casual, but failing miserably. Draco smirked, but decided not to press the matter.

"What do you want?" he asked, the same question he'd asked the first time they'd spoken.

"Well, I told Ron and Hermione about what you said, what your theory was on what happened," started Potter, "and Ron's still convinced that you're a Slytherin who's somehow conned the Sorting Hat so that you can corrupt the Hufflepuffs-" Draco sneered, and Potter smiled and shrugged. "-but I think that's rubbish, since you seem to be changing more than they do." Draco blinked, and was about to protest, but then Potter was talking again. "Hermione, though, said something useful."

"Doesn't she always?" drawled Draco sarcastically, and this time, Potter seemed to see the humour in it because he chuckled.

"I know," he said, "she's so smart it's annoying sometimes, but this time it was just good. We were talking about the troll, and we're pretty sure that someone _did_ let it in as a distraction, but how did it get in if Snape didn't let it in? Well, the wards had to be weakened, or someone _else_ had to let it in, and we don't think the wards would be weak with Dumbledore around, since he's so brilliant, and we don't think that there's any student in the school who could get the troll past the wards like that, so it did have to be an adult. So we were wondering if you had any ideas on who it could be if it _isn't_ Snape. And remember, that's probably going to be the same person who tried to kill me during the Quidditch match."

Draco frowned, thinking over everything Potter had just said; most of it he had already come to realize by himself, though, so it didn't take long. He leveled a glare at Potter.

"Just to be clear," he said, "I am _not_ about to go charging like some reckless Gryffindor idiot into something deadly, alright?"

"Yeah, fine," agreed Potter quickly. "Any ideas, though, at least?"

"Not really," said Draco, and then continued just as the other boy started to deflate in disappointment, "but that just means we'll have to use the process of elimination. We can definitely rule out the headmaster, McGonagall, Sprout, Pomfrey, Flitwick, and Burbage."

"Burbage?" asked Potter.

"She teaches Muggle Studies."

"Muggle Studies?" Potter sounded incredulous. "People really study them?"

"Yes," drawled Draco, "because not all of us grew up knowing what electricity is." Potter suddenly looked contemplative, and then nodded.

"Okay. So if we're also ruling out Snape-" Harry grimaced at that. "-then who's left?"

"Well, there's the Divination professor, Trelawny, the Ancient Runes professor, Babbling, the Arithmancy professor, Vector, the keeper of the keys, that Hagrid fellow, Professor Sinistra, and Professor Quirrell."

"Quirrell?" repeated Potter, sounding shocked. "He was terrified of the troll!"

"Or pretending to be terrified," said Draco, shrugging. "Besides, Trelawny, Babbling, Vector, Hagrid, and Sinistra aren't very likely to have the skills to get the troll through the wards undetected like that. Remember that even Dumbledore didn't know it was there until Quirrell came in screaming about it?

"But then Snape's wanted the Defence Against the Dark Arts position for years—he would know how to get it past the wards," said Potter.

"Then why would he have let Quirrell sound the alarm?" asked Draco. "Why not do it himself, or simply alert the other teachers without all that yelling?"

"Because he wanted to get to the third floor in the confusion."

"The confusion isn't what matters," countered Draco, "because it would only be bad to be seen going to the third floor corridor by other adults. Whoever let the troll in did it because it would distract the staff, not the students."

"Then if Quirrell did it, why did he come in looking scared instead of just telling Dumbledore or something?" asked Potter with a frown. Draco rolled his eyes.

"If he was acting, then it was to make people think that he couldn't handle a troll, and therefore couldn't have been the one to let it in."

"Or he was really scared."

"Or he was really scared," repeated Draco, agreeing. "Either way, you really do have two candidates for this: Snape and Quirrell, because both know about wards, trolls, and jinxes. But remember this: Quirrell was probably being overdramatic; I mean, I heard about what happened to the troll he let in-" Here he raised an eyebrow at Potter who flushed. "-and if three eleven-year-old students could take on a fully grown mountain troll, then a grown man screaming and crying over it is probably a little off." Draco stood then. "I don't know why anyone would be bothering with a cerberus—no, Potter, don't _tell_ me! Whatever's going on, it's dangerous, and I _do not want to be involved_."

"Er, right," said Potter slowly, nodding. "Thanks, I guess." Draco stalked off without answering.

Between that very enlightening conversation and his homework, Draco found his mind quite occupied until it was time for bed. As he lay there with his hangings drawn, he stared at the ceiling and found that he couldn't keep his thoughts from turning to his parents, the pink-haired woman, and the letter he'd received.

* * *

><p>"You made up with Neville." Draco looked up from his homework; Cedric was sitting across from him. "I also saw him come and sit with you at our table last week. That made all sorts of waves, you know—you started the whole thing by going up to the Gryffindor table, really, but he escalated it by sitting with you."<p>

"Yes," said Draco simply. "What's your point?"

"You won us our Quidditch match, really."

"Yes, so you've already said. Again, what is your point?"

"You got a letter from your cousin—Tonks, was it?"

"If you don't stop asking me inane questions I'm going to have to get up and walk away," warned Draco, and Cedric laughed.

"It's just that those are three awesome things that just happened," Cedric said, becoming serious once more, "but you still seem unhappy." Draco frowned. "See? Like that." Draco hit Cedric. "Really, though. It really seems like something's still bothering you, and I know I said on Halloween that I would leave you alone until you wanted to talk, but I've realized that you're not exactly the sort to go to someone else, so I decided that I had to come to you. What's bothering you?"

Was Halloween really almost a month ago? It didn't seem like that much time had passed—but then, he had schoolwork, Quidditch, his parents, and the mystery of the third floor corridor to worry about.

"Christmas is nearly here," said Draco, as though this was an explanation, and perhaps to Neville it would have been. Cedric nodded, although he obviously didn't understand the significance of what Draco had said.

"Just about a month before we go home," the older boy affirmed, and then paused thoughtfully. "Is that it? You don't want to go home?"

"I'm not sure," admitted Draco.

"I just assumed you'd gotten things together with your parents by now," Cedric told him. "Have you really still not heard anything?"

"Mother's sent a few letters, as have I," said Draco with a jerky shrug. "We only talked about the weather, though, honestly."

"The weather?" asked Cedric, a hint of amusement creeping into his voice, and Draco himself could see how it might be funny—if it were happening to someone else.

"Very important subject," said Draco, nodding. "'The weather here in Wiltshire has been absolutely dreadful, Draco darling. I can hardly even get outside to the rose garden without having to put on a shawl.'" Cedric nodded at his falsetto impersonation of his mother, and Draco smirked.

"Your house has weather charms, then?" asked Cedric, and whistled when Draco nodded. "To put weather charms on something as big as I'm assuming Malfoy Manor is would be incredible."

"They just built them into the wards," explained Draco, and then Cedric laughed again.

"We're actually talking about the weather," he said, and Draco grinned, too. "But getting back on topic, I can understand how you might not want to go home for the Christmas holiday."

"It might have been easier to figure out if I'd even known I was expected to go home before I was sorted," said Draco with a frown, "but we never actually discussed it."

"What does your family usually do on Christmas?" asked Cedric. "I mean, if you do something as a family, then they must want you there." Draco shook his head.

"That's part of it all. Usually my parents go to some Ministry function or a ball at the Parkinson's or the Nott's, or some other Pureblood estate. I usually just wake up and open my presents and entertain myself until they get home and we have dinner together, and they ask how I liked my presents." Draco clamped his mouth shut almost immediately after the words had left his lips, because Cedric was giving him a look wavering between surprised and pitying.

"I guess I can sort of understand why you'd be having trouble knowing if you're wanted at home or not," Cedric told him, his voice sad, and then he smiled, a mischievous glint in his eye. "If you don't go back home, then I'm sure my parents would love to have you."

"I-" Draco stopped. He'd stayed at his friends' houses from time to time, but never for the two weeks the Christmas holiday would be, and the Diggory home, while traditionally magical and middle-class, was probably nothing like those manors, but... well, Draco had never had anyone ask him like that, never had anyone seem so _excited_ at the prospect of having him there. "Thanks."

"No problem," answered Cedric with a grin. "And there you go! I just gave you a way to ask your parents if you should go home without it being too awkward." Draco finally grinned along with him. "Now, about your cousin. Have you answered her owl?"

* * *

><p>Tonks was <em>exhausted. <em>As she made the twenty-minute trek back to her flat from the Ministry, she was glad that she'd taken the best advice she'd gotten to get a flat near enough to walk to, because she knew that had she tried to Apparate straight there, she would've splinched herself from sheer tiredness. Her one regret about the place was that she didn't have a Floo connection.

Finally, Tonks had successfully navigated the streets of magical London and ascended the three flights of stairs to her small flat, and she didn't even make it to the bedroom, collapsing on the couch. She was also glad that she'd thought, when furnishing her apartment, of her clumsiness, and so had not put anything in the entryway to knock over when she stumbled home. She wrinkled her nose, knowing that the training she'd been through today had made her stink, and she cast a cleaning charm instead of taking the time to shower. She rolled over, groaning as she forced her body to move sore muscles, and then groaned even more loudly when the staccato tapping of an owl at her window stopped her from closing her eyes and falling asleep.

Muttering curses to herself, Tonks went to the window, and blinked as she let the owl in. It wasn't one she recognized, but she took the letter and gave it a treat before sending it on its way just the same—she did like most animals, after all. Sitting back down, she frowned at the perfect calligraphy gracing the front of the envelope, which read simply "Tonks." She ripped it open, and grinned, her weariness suddenly forgotten.

_Tonks,_

_ I apologize that it has taken me so long to respond to your owl, but I've been rather preoccupied._

_ I did see you in the stands at the Hufflepuff vs. Ravenclaw match, sitting between Professor Sprout and Professor Snape; how you managed to keep Snape from hexing you straight away when you yelled is something I would love to know._

_ I had not realized that it was Lucius who kept my mother from seeing you and your parents, but I am unsurprised. My father has always had incredibly high standards in all things, and enforces them rather rigidly._

_ I have been in contact recently with my parents, and we have decided that I will not be going home for the Christmas holiday; rather, I will be spending that time with my friend Cedric Diggory's family._

_Your cousin,_

_ Draco L. Malfoy_

Tonks smiled to herself, and started composing the first of two owls: one a reply to Draco, and the other to Amos Diggory.


	7. Chapter 7

After the last Potions class before the Christmas holiday, Draco waited yet again for everyone else to leave the room. Snape gave him a mild glare, and sank down at his desk. Draco grinned and sat down on top of a desk in front of Snape.

"What is it now?" snapped the Potions Master, sounding exasperated. Draco cocked his head to the side, doing his best to look innocent. Snape, if anything, seemed more irritated.

"Well, there's something rather odd about Professor Quirrell, isn't there?" asked Draco, and saw Snape's eyes narrow, and his lips twisted into a slightly malicious scowl, and his glare was now rather piercing, and Draco knew he'd guessed right.

"You claimed previously that you had no interest in such dangerous things," said Snape, his voice silky smooth and _deadly_. It made Draco shiver.

"I don't."

"_If_ that is true," answered Snape, "then why do you insist on continuing to meddle?" Draco shrugged.

"_I_ am not," sniffed Draco haughtily, slightly offended by the fact that Snape thought he would lie about this. Snape's expression twisted yet again, and now instead of threatening, he merely projected that same pure _hate_.

"_Potter_," he spat, and Draco blinked in surprise. What could Potter possibly have done to make Snape hate him so much?

"Er, yes," answered Draco slowly, somewhat put off by Snape's display of hatred. The professor seemed to realize this because he tried to school his expression and managed to look simply angry. "Anyhow, did we guess right about Quirrell?"

"Why are you helping him if you're so eager to stay out of it?" Draco frowned. That was a good question—one he couldn't actually answer. Why _had_ he continued to help Potter try to figure this out?

"He asked me for my help," Draco answered finally; Snape looked surprised at that, and then he began to laugh. It was a rather disconcerting sound, awkward and hoarse, as though he had not done it for some time.

"I had my doubts," said Snape when he had stopped laughing, "when the Sorting Hat placed you in Hufflepuff, but I now see that its judgment was entirely correct." Draco frowned in confusion—Snape said that as though he was supposed to feel insulted, but then again, he was being told that he was a good Hufflepuff, so why would he?

"Talking to Slytherins is very... tiresome," said Draco, and Snape smirked, his amusement still plain. "Is Quirrell really trying to 'get past' the cerberus? I still don't know what's 'past' the cerberus, really, but I think Potter might at least suspect." Snape was frowning again at that.

"I neither confirm nor deny anything," said Snape in his usual lofty, bored tones.

"That'll be a yes, then."

"Out, Mr. Malfoy. And no more meddling." Draco just grinned at the Potions Master.

"Happy Christmas, Professor."

* * *

><p>"Mum and Dad are really excited that you're coming to stay with us. They were always a little disappointed that they could only have one child—me, obviously—so they love it when I bring friends home," Cedric was telling Draco as the first-year packed his trunk. Cedric was sitting on Draco's bed, his own trunk already packed and waiting in the fourth-to-seventh year boys' room. "Besides, they're really excited to meet you in particular."<p>

"Why?" asked Draco idly.

"Because, like I told you after you were sorted, my dad's met your dad a few times at the Ministry, and because I've talked about you so much in my letters to them." Draco looked up at that, his brow furrowed.

"You have?"

"Of course," Cedric answered. "You're my friend." Draco smiled, feeling very pleased. "They were really impressed when I told them about how you got everyone here to respect you, and they're really happy that you're friends with Neville. Did I mention that my dad also knows Neville's grandmother?"

"No, you didn't." Draco frowned. "Cedric, Neville never talks about his parents. Are they dead? Is that why he has to live with his grandmother?" Cedric's normally happy expression fell away to be replaced by a troubled frown of his own.

"They aren't dead," he said slowly, "but in the war against You-Know-Who, really bad things happened to them, and... well, they're in St. Mungo's, and they aren't ever going to get better." Seeing that the subject was seriously bothering his friend, Draco nodded and changed topics.

"What does your family usually do on Christmas?"

"Well, it all starts on Christmas Eve, of course," Cedric began, his eyes lighting up. "We go caroling that night with some of our other family members, and sometimes our friends' families, and then we all go back to the house and have hot chocolate—my mum makes the best hot chocolate there is—and then we wake up early the next morning to open presents, and we have a big breakfast, and then we invite everybody over again for dinner that night. It's nothing that special, but it's nice, getting to see everybody like that."

"That sounds... nice." And it did, too. Draco hadn't ever minded spending Christmas day home alone—he liked being by himself a lot, and it made Christmas dinner with his parents that much more special.

"Now you'll get to see just how nice for yourself," Cedric told him happily, and Draco's lips twitched up into a smile. He shut his trunk. "Done packing?"

"Yes. I'm ready."

But then Draco was stopped by Potter and Granger in the Great Hall, just as he and Cedric were about to leave for Hogsmeade, and the Hogwarts Express.

"That _thing_ you've been helping me with," said Harry significantly, glancing at Cedric, "well, Hermione and I were thinking, and we have a good lead on who's hiding something, but we can't figure out who he is. We just have a name."

"And you want to ask if I know anything about it," said Draco, rather resigned to the fact that he was going to be pulled into their adventures despite himself. Potter nodded eagerly. "Fine, then."

Granger glanced at Cedric, who looked highly amused by all of this, and then leaned in close to Draco, whispering into his ear, "_Nicholas Flamel_." Draco rolled his eyes.

"Of course I know him," he said. "Everyone knows him. He's one of the most famous alchemists there is."

"An alchemist?" repeated Granger, looking thoughtful, and then her eyes went wide. She turned to Potter, grabbing his arm urgently. "Harry, _of course_! Nicholas Flamel made the only known Philosopher's Stone!" Draco felt his heart skip a beat.

"_That_ is what the beast is guarding?" exclaimed Draco. "You mean that one of _the most sought-after magical objects in the entire world is __**in this school**_?" Cedric put a hand on Draco's shoulder, looking rather concerned after Draco's outburst. Granger and Potter only spared him a glance, looking at each other with a combination of excitement and dread.

"I did see Hagrid get the package out of the vault, and it was definitely small enough to have been a stone," said Potter thoughtfully.

"No," said Draco, mostly to himself and Cedric as the two Gryffindors had stopped listening to him, "_no_. The bloody Philosopher's bloody Stone is _not_ here with a bunch of _students_ just begging for any low-life criminal off the street to come for it! _What is Dumbledore __**thinking**_?" Cedric cleared his throat loudly.

"Well, we need to get on the train," he said to Potter and Granger, "so I guess this is good-bye."

"Oh, I'm going home too," said Granger. "Perhaps we could go down together?"

"Sure," agreed Cedric happily, and Draco felt his stomach lurch.

Justin Finch-Fletchley was one thing, but Hermione Jane Granger was quite another.

Thankfully, Granger didn't sit with them, instead choosing to go with several of her housemates that were also going home for the holidays. Draco breathed a sigh of relief as she left them in their own compartment. Cedric, being taller, stowed their trunks away for them, and then sat and fixed Draco with an intently curious, piercing stare.

"What?" asked Draco, shifting. Cedric gave him a half-smile.

"You don't do innocent very well," said his friend. "What was all that back there with Potter and Hermione?" Draco cringed a little at her first name; she and Cedric had apparently gotten on well during the trip down to Hogsmeade.

"Er, what are you talking about?" asked Draco, and Cedric laughed.

"Really, Draco?" he said, shaking his head. "Why would you think that _the_ Philosopher's Stone is inside Hogwarts?"

"I don't know why they think that it's the Philosopher's Stone," said Draco quickly, "but there _is_ something in the school that needs a rather large amount of protection. They apparently think that it's the Stone."

"How could you possibly know that?" asked Cedric, and Draco sighed heavily before launching into the whole story about the troll and the jinx and what they'd made of it, his own conversations with Snape, their suspicions about Quirrell, and what, exactly, lay behind the locked door of the third-floor corridor on the right hand side. When he'd finished, Cedric sat there looking a little shocked.

"I don't know whether to laugh or... well, I really just don't know," he said. "You realize this all seems really incredible, right? I mean, one of our _professors_ trying to kill Harry Potter?"

"I know," answered Draco, "but I always had a feeling that something wasn't quite right with Professor Quirrell." Cedric did laugh at that.

"Of course something isn't right with him," he answered. "He was scared out of his wits and never quite got them all back, the poor man." Draco laughed, too. "Let's just forget about it for now, okay? Let the professors and Headmaster Dumbledore worry about all of it. You're going to have to learn the songs we sing when we go caroling, after all."

* * *

><p>Amos and Paulette Diggory were very nice people, and Draco frowned at the thought. It wasn't that their being nice was bad, exactly, so much as it was... disconcerting. Everyone around him lately seemed <em>nice<em> and cheerful and happy when Draco was used to hearing about how irritated his parents were by having to prepare for yet another Christmas Ball. The Diggorys just greeted their son with hugs and kisses and then smiled widely at Draco as he shook their hands, nodding politely to each of them.

"It's nice to meet you, ma'am," said Draco evenly to Cedric's mother, and she blinked in surprise, and then laughed—it sounded not too very different from Cedric's, he thought. Cedric had his father's smile, though.

"Just call me Mrs. Diggory, dear," she told him, and he nodded. "Have you ever done Side-Along Apparition before?" Draco nodded, and decided not to mention that the first time he had, he'd thrown up on his father's newest pair of Italian loafers. Lucius had been irritated, but unsurprised, and a few cleaning charms later, he had forgotten the incident enough to indulge in an ice cream cone with his son. Draco's lips twitched at the memory of his father's tongue darting out to lick the melting ice cream, managing to keep his hands miraculously clean even as Draco made quite a mess of his face and hands.

He shook himself out of the memory and took hold of the offered arm, holding on firmly as King's Cross station twisted and fell away, and a new place came into view. They were standing just outside the front gate of a tall, somewhat skinny, yet solid-looking brick house covered in fluffy white snow, white smoke curling out of the tall chimney.

"Welcome to the Diggory's, Draco."

The inside of the house was nothing like Draco had ever seen before. Instead of antiques hundreds of years old lining immaculate shelves and bookcases, the rooms seemed to be filled by pictures of a large, happy family, waving to the camera or having snowball fights or pushing each other into ponds. The rooms weren't exactly cluttered, but Draco was mildly overwhelmed by what looked to him like a melange of furnishings of different colors and sizes rather than ornate heirlooms positioned with absolute perfection.

The bedroom he would be occupying was a bit calmer, obviously a guest room. It was a calming blue with a minimum of furniture, only a wardrobe, a rather comfortable looking armchair, a large bed, and a desk. Draco felt better already, knowing that he was also next to Cedric.

"You put your stuff away yet?" asked Cedric eagerly, barging into the room. Draco rolled his eyes at his friend's eagerness, but nodded. "Great! First order of business is always the same."

"And what is that?" Cedric's smile grew decidedly wicked.

"A snowball fight. On _broomsticks_."

* * *

><p>December twenty-fourth. The first-floor East dining room had been decorated with garlands and wreaths in the house elves' attempts to make their Masters cheerful. Lucius Malfoy ate silently, his eyes straight ahead, for the most part—he couldn't stand looking at Narcissa, knowing what he'd see. No doubt she blamed him for Draco's unwillingness to come home, as she probably should; he and Draco hadn't spoken since he met with the Headmaster the second day of school.<p>

Narcissa put her fork down with more force than strictly necessary, scraped her chair back loudly over their ancient dark wooden floors, and took her napkin from her lap and threw it on the table next to her plate. Lucius finally looked at her, and saw her lips drawn tightly together as she was blinking rapidly, tears in her eyes, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

"I'm going to retire," she said, her voice quiet but steady. "Please... please inform the Notts that I won't be able to attend their Christmas celebration tomorrow. I'm... I'm not feeling well."

"Narcissa," he said, and now she was refusing to look at him. She stood, and so did he, mirroring her actions and tossing his napkin onto the table. He reached out and caught her hand, tightening his hold when she tried to pull away. "_Narcissa_." She looked at him, and instead of blame or anger, all he saw was sadness.

"I want my son back, Lucius," she said, her voice trembling slightly. Lucius took a deep breath. "We've lost him, haven't we? What... what did we do wrong?"

And Lucius answered honestly. "I don't know."

A soft pop signaled the entrance of a house elf. "Dobby is sorry to interrupt Masters, but you is having a Firecall."

"From whom?" asked Lucius, his eyes never moving from his wife's.

"He is saying his name is Amos Diggory, sir. He is saying he wants to talk about Master Draco."

* * *

><p>Draco had never been one of those children who laid awake on Christmas Eve, unable to sleep for anticipation of the coming morning, but now, as he lay in the bed which served as his at the Diggory house, he found that he couldn't sleep at all. He sat up, giving up for the moment, and went to the armchair by the window, looking out over the shadowy silhouette of forested hills that served as the backyard of this house. He sighed, and then jumped slightly when his door creaked open.<p>

"Draco?" whispered Cedric. "You awake?"

"Yes." Cedric entered the room fully, shutting the door behind him and climbing onto Draco's bed, crossing his legs.

"I never can sleep on Christmas Eve," he said. "I'm too wired from caroling—that's what makes me really believe that it's Christmas tomorrow. Kind of silly, I know, but when the adults start throwing snow like kids..." Draco smirked; at the end of caroling, Mrs. Diggory had taken a handful of snow and shoved it unceremoniously down the back of her husband's sweater, who promptly retaliated by throwing his own small pile of snow at her. Cedric's aunts, uncles, and grown cousins had joined in soon after. "Did you like it?"

Draco paused. "I think so. It was somewhat..."

"Overwhelming?" Draco nodded, and then realized that Cedric wouldn't be able to see that in the dim light.

"Yes."

"Makes sense," said his friend agreeably. "I mean, it sounds like you don't usually make a big deal out of Christmas, so our non-stop cheer must be a little much for you."

"A bit."

"Well," said Cedric, and the teasing tone in his voice told Draco that he was about to make some sort of joke, "don't worry. Christmas will be over tomorrow, and then we'll just have New Year's to think about." There was a longer pause this time.

"You don't really celebrate New Year's like you do Christmas, do you?" asked Draco, and Cedric laughed.

"You have a week before you find that out." Draco scowled, and even though Cedric couldn't see him, he had a feeling that the older boy knew what he was doing. "I'm going back to bed. Maybe I'll actually sleep now. You should try to sleep, too."

"Yeah. Goodnight."

"Goodnight." Despite his agreement, Draco didn't even bother to get back into bed.

The next morning, Draco's door was again opened by Cedric. The older boy gave a breathy laugh, trying to be quiet, as he saw Draco curled in on himself, asleep in the armchair where he'd last left him. He crept over to the boy, and then reached out and touched his shoulder gently. Draco's reaction was instantaneous—his eyes flew open, and he jerked slightly. Cedric laughed.

"You really are a light sleeper, aren't you?" his voice was filled with cheerful humor, and Draco blinked, his tiredness returning as he calmed.

"What time is it?"

"Six."

"In the morning?" asked Draco incredulously. Cedric laughed.

"Of course," he said.

"It's too early in the morning for you to be so bloody happy then."

"How could I not be happy," said Cedric, his smile only widening at his friend's comment, "when we have people waiting for us downstairs so we can open our presents?" Draco just groaned and tried to curl back up, but Cedric wasn't having it. With a grin, he shrugged. "Alright. Have it your way." With that, he reached out and picked Draco up, throwing him over his shoulder. Draco cried out in surprise, and Cedric only continued to laugh.

"Put me down!"

"When we get downstairs, maybe," answered Cedric smugly. Draco wasn't weak, but he was definitely far smaller than Cedric, and so even though he struggled, Cedric had no trouble in keeping his hold on him. They finally reached the sitting room where the Christmas tree had been erected, and presents put beneath and around it over the past few days. The adults' conversations stopped as they took in the sight of Draco slung casually over Cedric's shoulder.

"Sleeping Beauty wouldn't get up," teased Cedric.

"Put. Me. _Down_." Cedric laughed again, and then finally obeyed, tossing Draco down onto a plush armchair much like the one he'd slept in. Draco crossed his arms over his chest, leveling his best glare at Cedric. "Never again." The adults looked a little surprised, but Cedric was used to the young Malfoy glaring at people, himself included, and just laughed again and reached down to pick up a package, chucking it at Draco, who caught it reflexively.

"That's for you," he said. "We sort before we open." Draco nodded, and Cedric continued with the present sorting, distributing presents to each person in the room.

Draco, for the first time in his life that he could remember, had other people to open presents with, and he found that watching them provided him almost as much entertainment for him as opening his own presents did. He saw the sweaters, books, Quidditch jerseys, and gag gifts Cedric got from his relatives, and realized that his own present opening had slowed as he watched his friend.

Despite his lagging pace, Draco managed to get nearly all of his presents opened by the time breakfast was going to be prepared; Mrs. Diggory was, apparently, going to have them take their gifts to their rooms while she cooked. His parents had sent his presents to the Diggory's; it was the usual assortment of presents, much like what Cedric had received, although where Cedric received new sweaters, Draco received new dress robe sets, and the books Draco got were often on history or political science—those were from Lucius, no doubt.

Draco picked up a rather plainly wrapped gift, and frowned at the tag, which read "To D. L. Malfoy, From S. S." He thought he might know who S. S. was, but why would his professor send him a gift? Ripping off the paper, Draco saw an old, leather-bound book with a faded cover, on which he could barely make out the Hogwarts crest. He opened it, and tucked just inside was a handwritten note on a bit of parchment.

_Your fascination with your house's namesake did not escape my attention, and after you have read this book, perhaps you should share it with your parents. It might ease their feelings on the subject of your placement._

_ This book originally belonged to Hogwarts, but the Headmaster assured me that he shares my belief that it will serve a better purpose in your hands._

_ -S. Snape_

Draco looked down at the inscription and felt his eyebrows rise involuntarily. The book's title read "The Slytherin-Hufflepuff Legacy: The Birth of Modern Healing Magic."

"What's that?" asked Cedric, trying to peer over Draco to read it.

"A book about healing magic," he answered casually, and Cedric made a "hmm"ing noise. Draco closed the book and purposefully put it beneath a few of his other presents. Cedric thrust one last gift onto his lap. "That's from me."

"Oh," said Draco. "Yours is-"

"I've got it right here," answered Cedric, brandishing the package Draco had asked Susan Bones how to wrap, complete with a curled, fluffy bow on the top. "Together?" Draco nodded.

Cedric's gift to Draco was a set of biographies, and Draco smiled slightly to himself when he saw who the books were about: the Slytherins Helga Hufflepuff had taken on as students when Salazar left the school. Draco glanced up at Cedric to see how he liked his gift. Draco had gotten his friend a thick compilation of winning Quidditch strategies from 1357 to the present, and inside he had scrawled a personal message: _Because we all know you're going to become Captain next year_. Cedric grinned at him.

"Thanks," they said simultaneously, and several of the adults chuckled.

As planned, Draco and Cedric made trips up to their respective bedrooms to clear away their gifts. When they had finished, Draco was very tempted to begin reading Snape's book, but just then Mrs. Diggory called that breakfast was ready. With some regret, Draco hid it in the bottom of his trunk, carefully covered by sweaters and old homework assignments. He wasn't sure why he was being so careful to keep the book a secret, but every instinct he had said that it was a good idea.

After breakfast, he and Cedric had yet another snowball fight on their broomsticks—broomsticks which frustrated the both of them to no end, with charms placed on them to limit height and speed—and then, when they were finally brought back inside by Mr. and Mrs. Diggory, they both showered and changed, and then retreated to their rooms for a while.

Finally Draco got the chance to begin reading, and he settled himself into the armchair, the book on his lap.

He didn't move until Cedric came to fetch him for dinner.

"Five more minutes, Cedric," said Draco desperately, and Cedric laughed at him.

"You do enough reading as it is," said his older friend, rolling his eyes. "Come on, we have a surprise for you." Draco raised one eyebrow at his friend and closed his book, returning it to his trunk. He followed Cedric down the stairs, and stopped halfway. Standing in the sitting room talking to Cedric's parents was his cousin, Nymphadora Tonks.

She saw him staring and waved. "'Lo, Draco!"

"Hello," he answered, still feeling rather surprised.

"Well, come down here, let me see you!" Draco obeyed, and as soon as he reached the bottom of the staircase, Tonks grabbed him and pulled him into a hug.

The Diggory's fireplace, complete with Floo connections, chose that moment to roar into life, and then out stepped Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.

By New Year's Eve, the Christmas decorations had been cleared away from Malfoy Manor. Personally, Draco liked it better when the banisters of the large, winding staircases were wrapped with garlands, and even the portraits of his extended family members seemed far more cheerful when it was Christmastime at the Manor.

As it was, even without the decorations, the historic Gothic structure was imposing, and whenever someone visited for the first time, the amazed reactions always made Draco look around at the home he'd become accustomed to with new eyes.

"Merlin, Draco," breathed Cedric, eyes wide, "no wonder you weren't wide-eyed like the other first-years at Hogwarts. This place is _incredible_."

"I would be very happy to give you all a tour," said Narcissa, making an effort to smile at the group, which consisted of Cedric, his parents, and Nymphadora Tonks. Draco knew that his mother would rather that her niece not be present, but she didn't have a choice—Tonks had been sitting at the table with all of them on Christmas day when Draco had subtly convinced his parents to invite the Diggorys over to the Manor for New Year's to repay them for having played host to Draco.

Draco had gone home to Malfoy Manor after the Christmas meal. He admitted to himself, if no one else, that he had been so ecstatic to see his parents come through the Floo that his eyes had watered, although he hadn't let himself cry. Amos Diggory quickly jumped in to explain to Draco that he had made a Firecall to Draco's parents, inviting them for Christmas dinner, and they had accepted. The meal had been rather awkward, as Lucius and Narcissa were not used to dining so casually, or speaking so casually, or doing _anything_ as casually as the Diggorys did, and the Diggorys were not used to playing host to any members of the old aristocracy. Draco was very glad that Tonks was there, in the end, because when the long, uncomfortable silences grew to be too much for everyone at the table, she used her abilities as a Metamorphagus to make herself appear to be Professor Dumbledore.

"Alas," she'd said, and Draco and Cedric had promptly choked on their food, trying not to laugh, "Christmas is not a time for awkwardness between family and friends!" She'd then turned back into herself, and grinned at everyone. "Maybe Draco and Cedric should tell us about the first Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw match?" The two boys had exchanged glances, but that was all it took. They spent the rest of the meal comfortably chatting about Quidditch, with Cedric and Draco's respective mothers occasionally interjecting to voice their concerns about their sons' safety, and their fathers and Tonks speaking up to give Quidditch statistics on the professional teams.

Draco hadn't known that his father followed Quidditch so closely, but he was very, very grateful that he had.

After dinner, the Diggorys had somehow managed for Draco to be alone with his parents in the sitting room. They had stood there just as awkwardly as they had spoken to each other at dinner before Tonks intervened, and Draco took a deep breath, and broke the silence.

"I'm glad to see you both," he said, and seeing his mother break into a smile and his father's eyes soften—which was practically a hug from his father—he decided to add, "I've missed you." Narcissa _had_ hugged him, then, and Lucius had squeezed his shoulder, which was more physical demonstration than his father almost ever showed.

"This gathering presented an opportunity to stop this foolishness," said Lucius. Draco gave him a questioning look, and his father elaborated. "We... your mother and I were... surprised by your house placement, but we've let it stand between us long enough. I realize that you're upset that I couldn't manage to change your house-"

"No!" protested Draco, genuinely surprised by that. "That isn't it at all." Lucius frowned at him, and raised one eyebrow in inquiry, much as Draco tended to do. "I thought you were upset that I wasn't placed in Slytherin." And there it was. His father's eyes flashed, the grey going stormy for a moment before clearing again. Draco knew that he was right, and felt his heart sink.

"We were just surprised, Draco," said his mother calmly, glancing at his father, who nodded stonily. "We thought that you might be unhappy, were you not in Slytherin."

"I like Hufflepuff," he assured them quickly, and tried _not_ to notice his father's grimace. "And I've made other friends who aren't in Slytherin."

"Cedric Diggory seems... he's a fine young man," Lucius said, although his voice was strained. Draco smiled at his father. Lucius and Narcissa weren't about to change overnight, but this, at least, was a start.

Maybe now they could write each other about a bit more than the Manor's weather charms.

* * *

><p>"Your house is <em>seriously<em> incredible," said Cedric. They were sitting at the edge of the West first-floor ballroom, watching Cedric's parents and Tonks interacting rather awkwardly with the rich, pureblood couples traditionally invited to the Manor for New Year's Eve.

"Thanks," answered Draco.

"And now I get why you're an arrogant prat," Cedric told him, but just as the first time he'd said it, his voice was filled with teasing humor. Draco butted him with his shoulder, and the two shared a smile.

Across the room, Draco saw Professor Snape standing next to the Zabinis, holding a glass of champagne. Seeing Draco looking at him, he raised his glass to the boy and gave him a thin-lipped smile just as the clock struck midnight.


	8. Chapter 8

For the first few weeks after returning from the Christmas holiday, life for Draco was _perfect_. He had his parents back, first and foremost—both Lucius and Narcissa now sent him rather long letters, Narcissa's detailing the gossip of the family and their aristocratic social circle, and Lucius's centred around the goings-on of the political and business worlds in which he was so entrenched. The first time Draco had received a set of these letters, Cedric had peered over his shoulder to see what had been making him grin so ecstatically, and his brow had furrowed in confusion.

"That's _normal_ conversation for you and your parents?" asked Cedric, and Draco nodded. "Er, alright, then." There was a long pause, and then Cedric let out a breathy chuckle. "First your house, now this. I really don't think I could live like you."

But it was more than the fact that he and his parents were getting on well again: Draco also had their _permission_ to write to Nymphadora Tonks. He had felt mildly guilty, before, writing to her, but now that she had been to the Manor, and was working with her mother to rebuild a relationship with Narcissa (his father still wanted nothing to do with them, but the Malfoys were nothing if not gracious hosts, and so he never said a word to them about Ted Tonks, who was never, ever to set foot in Malfoy Manor so long as Lucius was alive), Draco found that he was much more excited to write to her, and was very curious to hear about her Auror training. It sounded interesting, but he doubted he'd ever like it.

Things at school were almost as great as things at home. One evening, he'd been sitting in the library with Susan and Justin and Neville, the former two having joined their Potions-Herbology study sessions after the holiday, and he'd seen Cedric a few shelves away, and the older boy had given him a cheerful wave. Draco had smiled back, and then found that he couldn't stop.

"Are you, ehm, okay?" Neville had asked, and Draco had nodded.

"It's just... well. I have _friends_, haven't I?" he'd said, and the friends concerned had given each other bemused looks. "In Slytherin, you don't really have that. You have allies, at best."

"That sounds horrible," Susan had told him, and the others had nodded.

"But I'm _not_ a Slytherin," Draco had mused, his grin widening. "I'm a _Hufflepuff_." His friends had looked amused, but Draco was simply too happy to care.

Life certainly was _good_, Draco decided as he sat next to Cedric for breakfast one Saturday after a few weeks back, the older boy having convinced him to leave his books in the dormitory and have some _fun_. They weren't going to have Quidditch practice that day, as Gryffindor had booked the pitch before the holiday had even begun, and Cedric had given him a _look_ and told him that he knew Draco's weekend assignments were already done, so he had no excuse to shut himself away and read. It hadn't taken as much prodding as it once had to get Draco to agree.

Draco was just helping himself to some toast when he saw Pansy glance his way briefly from across the Hall at the Slytherin table. He frowned—so life was _almost_ perfect. And then a rather wicked grin spread across his face. He got up.

"I'll see you later, Cedric," he said absently.

"What're you doing?" asked the fourth-year, sounding wary—he knew by now what that look on Draco's face meant. Draco glanced back at him and shrugged.

"Just what you suggested," he said. "I'm having _fun_."

* * *

><p>The Great Hall wasn't quite as full as it usually was that Saturday morning, with most of the students still in bed, taking advantage of the weekend to sleep in and laze about. Even so, the chattering of the students and clinking of cutlery and glasses made Albus Dumbledore smile. He looked over the long tables carefully, one at a time. Several Slytherins had their heads bent together, looking as though they were plotting something, but Dumbledore paid them no mind, realizing that they were all on the Quidditch team and, in all likelihood, were developing new strategies.<p>

The Gryffindor table came next, and he saw Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger whispering urgently to one another, looking rather worried, and he wondered how far along they were in solving the riddle of the third-floor corridor—Severus seemed to think that they had the majority of the mystery well and truly solved, though he was being very vague on how he knew that.

Dumbledore's smile grew rather more amused and fond as he looked to the Ravenclaw table, where most students had books or parchment with them as they ate, and very few of those applied directly to their classes or assignments.

Finally, the Hufflepuff table, and just as his gaze had immediately sought out Harry Potter at the Gryffindor table, here he found the white-blond hair of Draco Malfoy. The boy was seated next to Cedric Diggory, a very promising student, and Dumbledore felt such great happiness knowing that despite his parents' beliefs, despite their past deeds and current beliefs, Draco Malfoy had a _chance_, and all because his tie was yellow rather than green. He felt a sudden, rather illogical rush of affection for the Sorting Hat.

"You're staring, Headmaster," drawled Severus from beside him, following the old wizard's gaze to the Hufflepuff table.

"It is rather difficult not to," replied Dumbledore. "He is growing into rather a remarkable boy, don't you agree?" His Potions Master said nothing, and Dumbledore glanced at him; the dark eyes were troubled, although it was only their long association and Dumbledore's rather considerable skill at reading people which allowed him to realize this. "Is something the matter?"

"I simply wonder, at times," he said slowly, refusing to meet the Headmaster's gaze, "if you would show such an interest in him had he been sorted into Slytherin." Ah, there it was. Dumbledore felt a rush of regret and sympathy, as he always did when he was reminded of Severus's troubled past.

"There is no reason to dwell on what might have been, Severus," he said quietly. "Choices are made, and so are mistakes, but from such things the greatest acts may occur." Severus sneered at his words, obviously directed more to him than any discussion of Draco Malfoy, but Dumbledore saw calm again entering the dark eyes—only to be overtaken by interest and amusement. A moment later, Dumbledore realized why.

Draco Malfoy was walking calmly, yet briskly, across the Great Hall, his eyes fixed on the Slytherin table.

He slowed as he passed the Gryffindor one, waving to Neville Longbottom—and what a wonderful opportunity that friendship was, Dumbledore thought, for _both _boys—and nodding rather regally to the Golden Trio before passing them, heading straight up the aisle to the middle of the Slytherin table, and, without saying a word, seating himself across from Pansy Parkinson.

The Hall was absolutely silent, just as it had been the first time he had approached the Gryffindor table.

"Good morning, Pansy," he said cheerfully, though his smile was rather devilish. She just sat there, eyes wide, staring at him.

"I—what are you _doing_ over here?" she hissed quietly, but her voice still carried in the absolute quiet. Draco shrugged.

"It's been rather a long time since we last spoke," said Draco, "and I've found that I miss your wit." He smirked at her as she gaped at him, and Dumbledore chuckled quietly at that—a manoeuvre worthy of a Slytherin, most definitely.

"I won't be able to study with you two today—Wood's booked the pitch again." That voice belonged to Harry Potter, and half the heads in the Hall immediately turned to look at him. His cheeks were a brilliant red at the attention, but his eyes were resolutely on his two friends. Dumbledore had a feeling that he knew, and that the Malfoy boy knew, exactly what Harry was doing, because in the ensuing moments, the tables slowly began returning to their own conversations, though most kept an eye on the Hufflepuff sitting amongst Slytherins.

"He loves making a spectacle of himself," Severus observed, still looking at Draco. "He's still so like Lucius."

"And yet so like his cousin," said Dumbledore, and smiled benignly as Severus glared at him. Both knew that he could be speaking of a nearly infinite number of people, Nymphadora Tonks and Sirius Black included.

Dumbledore was inclined to believe the former as he saw Draco turn marginally, his eyes meeting Harry Potter's, and gave him the smallest of smiles.

* * *

><p>Neville Longbottom was very proud to be a Gryffindor, and very grateful, too. He didn't think that he could handle being in Ravenclaw, because he wasn't nearly smart enough, and although most of his friends were Hufflepuffs, really, he wasn't sure that he wanted to be there, either—it seemed very tiring, being so cheerful and forgiving all of the time—plus there was Draco's Slytherin-esque behaviour to contend with as well. He wasn't even going to think about Slytherin house itself. No, all things considered, Neville was very, very happy that the Sorting Hat had decided to put him in Gryffindor as he'd asked it to. He only wondered if he had the courage to be a true Gryffindor.<p>

He thought about this frequently, worried over it, _obsessed_ over it, even, and when he did, he tried to take a walk—the grounds of Hogwarts were just _filled_ with interesting plants. He'd gotten braver, too, venturing farther and farther away from the castle and the greenhouses, towards the Forbidden Forest—not that he would actually go _in_, of course. Even if Neville had felt brave enough for that, it was still, well, _forbidden_. But that didn't mean that he couldn't go close to it.

And he did, identifying Vertaxia Weeds and Corbing just beginning to sprout now that the winter's heaviest frosts were over—and then he froze. Voices were carrying from inside the forest, and the voices were ones Neville recognized. His eyes wide, he listened to the conversation, and then ran as quickly as his feet would carry him back to the castle.

He had to _tell_ someone, he had to get _help_, he had to-

Neville was in such a state of panic that he ran headlong into another student, sending both of them sprawling onto the ground. He sucked in a breath as he saw who it was.

"Well, well, what have we here," said Theodore Nott, getting to his feet quickly. Neville tried to get up as well, but his nerves made him clumsy, and he simply fell back to the stone floor. "Neville Longbottom, the clumsy _fool_, the cowardly lion, the almost _orphan_." Neville glared at him.

"D-don't you talk about my parents, Nott," he said, and tried to sound confident. Nott laughed at him, and pulled out his wand.

"I'll say whatever I want about a filthy blood traitor like you," said the boy, and then prepared to bring down his wand in a curse. Neville flinched.

"Stop it, Teddy!" Neville stared at the ugly look which came over Nott's face, never having seen such an expression on an eleven-year-old; more commonly he saw it on Snape.

"Defending a filthy blood traitor, _Malfoy_?" spat Nott, and Neville glanced back to see Draco was indeed standing there behind him, his own hand on his wand. "Then again, I suppose you'd take what friends you can get, since you weren't good enough for _Slytherin_."

"Think what you want, Teddy," said Draco, his voice quiet, and Neville wanted to yell at him to at least stand up to the other boy, but then he continued, "but I know the truth."

"The truth is that you couldn't convince the Hat to let Slytherin take you," said Nott.

"The truth is that Helga Hufflepuff saved your precious Slytherin's life," said Draco, his voice louder now, but still even. "_Twice_."

"That's a lie!" yelled Nott. "You _dare_ to say such things about Salazar Slytherin! Hufflepuff wasn't worthy to _look_ at him!"

"Hufflepuff was one of the greatest witches of her age," snapped Draco, and Neville finally managed to stand, feeling braver with his friend there.

"She wasn't fit to teach, undoing all of Slytherin's work!"

"She taught Salazar's students when he abandoned them out of his own damn pride!"

"You dishonour Slytherin, and he's rolling in his grave!" Nott's face screwed up in anger, and he looked particularly malicious. "In fact, you dishonour your Slytherin family. You're a disgrace to the House of Malfoy." There was deadly silence for a long moment, and Neville knew that Nott had just crossed some sort of line.

"You take that back, Nott."

"Never. You should be struck from your family tree!"

And then Draco was launching himself at Theodore Nott, the two of them collapsing to the ground as Draco's fists went flying, and Nott tried to kick him.

Crabbe and Goyle chose that moment to make an entrance, and, seeing that Neville was the only one left standing, came charging at him. Neville did the only sensible thing he could.

He ran right back at them, screaming.

All three were soon on the cold stone floor right next to Draco and Nott, and Neville was satisfied to see that at least Draco was managing fine against the Slytherin boy. Neville himself was getting pounded into the ground, rather literally.

"What's going on here?" The fighting didn't stop, but Neville vaguely registered that that was Ron Weasley's voice, but he was too busy trying to squirm away from Crabbe, who was holding him down for Goyle to punch to try talking. A moment later, Ron was trying to pull Goyle away, and Goyle turned around and punched him, too. Ron looked stunned for a moment, and then he was screaming loudly and throwing himself at the larger boy.

A group of students gathered around the six fighting first-years, and some were shouting for them to stop, but most were egging them on. Then one voice broke through the jeering crowd.

"_Enough_!" roared Professor McGonagall, and immediately, all of the boys separated, breathing heavily, all of them bruised and bleeding. "What in the name of Merlin is going on here?"

"Longbottom _attacked_ me, knocked me onto the ground, I was just defending myself-" That was Nott, and Draco was quick to contradict him.

"That's not true! He was going to hex Neville, and then he and I were fighting when Crabbe and Goyle came along-"

"Goyle just hit me when I tried to break it up-"

"That's a dirty lie, Weasley! You came at me from behind!"

And Neville, in the midst of all of this, remembered why he'd been running in the first place.

"Professor, someone's going to try to get the Philosopher's Stone!"

For the first time ever, Neville's voice silenced all others, as everyone stood there in shock. Finally, Draco spoke up.

"How do _you_ know about the Stone?"

Ron was next. "Snape's going to steal it?"

But Draco had something to say to that, too. "Don't be an idiot, Weasley, haven't you listened to Potter at all? We know it's not Snape-"

"But it was, in the forest!" protested Neville.

Ron's voice was smug. "That's that, then. He's _evil_."

"Don't you dare say anything against my head of house!" That was Nott again—and then they were all yelling at once, and they were edging closer and closer to using their fists, until McGonagall put a swift end to that, too.

"_Quiet_, all of you!" she yelled, and again, there was silence. "I will escort all six of you to Professor Dumbledore's office. As for the rest of you-" She glanced around forbiddingly at the gathering of onlookers. "-to your houses. _Now_."

* * *

><p>Even when he was about to punish his students, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore's blue eyes were twinkling kindly, even as they levelled a disapproving stare at the children in front of him. Draco wondered if he shouldn't have been in Hufflepuff rather than Gryffindor, since he seemed to be perpetually cheerful and kind.<p>

"Indulge me for a moment, gentlemen," said the headmaster, "whilst I familiarize myself with your names. Mr. Theodore Nott, Mr. Vincent Crabbe, and Mr. Gregory Goyle of Slytherin house, yes?" The boys nodded, too intimidated to speak. "And Mr. Ronald Weasley and Mr. Neville Longbottom of Gryffindor house." Again, they nodded. Dumbledore's twinkling eyes turned on Draco, and he was sure that he saw a flash of amusement rather than disapproval, but then it was gone. "And I'm already acquainted with you, Mr. Malfoy." Draco nodded just as the others had. "Perhaps Mr. Weasley would like to go first. Tell me what happened, if you please."

"Er, well, I dunno how the fight started," said Ron honestly, although he was squirming uncomfortably in front of that all too knowing gaze, "but when I saw them, Malfoy and Nott were going at it, and Crabbe was holding down Neville so Goyle could punch him. I tried to pull Goyle off of him, and then Goyle punched _me_, and, um, well. I hit him back."

"I see," said Dumbledore, and turned to the Slytherin boys. "Mr. Crabbe, how did the fight begin?"

"I wasn't there for the beginning of it either," admitted Crabbe slowly. "When Goyle and I saw them, Longbottom and Malfoy were ganging up on Nott, and we went in to help him."

"Th-that's not what happened!" Neville managed to protest, and when it looked like the yelling was going to start again, Draco's voice put a stop to it.

"Oh, for Merlin's _sake_. I started the fight," he snapped. "Nott was bullying Neville, he had his wand out and everything, and I stepped in. Nott said some... well, I'd rather not repeat it, but we had words, and then I hit him first." Dumbledore looked at him for a long moment and then turned to Neville.

"Is this the truth?" Neville nodded. Dumbledore turned back to the Slytherins. "Mr. Nott, is this true?" Nott, that ugly look still on his face, nodded as well. "I see. In which case, I deduct thirty points each from Slytherin for fighting; thirty each from Gryffindor; and fifty from Hufflepuff, Mr. Malfoy, for being the instigator. You will all have a week's detention as well. Mr. Nott, Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Goyle—for now you are to return to your house common room. I will be speaking to Professor Snape regarding the details of your punishment." The Slytherins didn't need to be told twice, and Draco had a feeling that they were more intimidated by Snape than they were Professor Dumbledore.

"Professor," said Draco urgently the moment the other boys had gone, "this really isn't important right now. Neville said something about someone trying to take the Philosopher's Stone!"

"Oh!" said Dumbledore, and he sounded strangely delighted to hear it. "So you've solved the mystery of the forbidden third-floor corridor. What did you hear, Mr. Longbottom?"

"I was near the Forbidden Forest—not in it, of course, I wouldn't do that. I was just looking around at all of the plants, and then I heard Professor Snape asking Professor Quirrell if he'd found out how to get past what he called 'Hagrid's beast'-"

"_Hagrid_? The cerberus belongs to the _gamekeeper_?" said Draco, aghast. Dumbledore twinkled ever more merrily.

"Of course!" said Dumbledore. "Hagrid raised Fluffy from the time he was no more than a pup." Draco stared at him in disbelief. "Do go on, Mr. Longbottom."

"Er, well, Professor Snape said something about Quirrell not wanting him as an enemy, and there was something about Quirrell's hocus-pocus, and I don't have any idea what it means, but it sounds like Professor Snape's going to try to get past the... well, the three-headed dog, I guess, to get the Stone," he finished in a rush. "I didn't even know about the Stone until I heard that!"

"I see," said Dumbledore. "And Mr. Weasley, how long have you, Ms. Granger, and Mr. Potter been aware of the Stone?"

"A few months now," he admitted. "We got lost one night, and accidentally went in the door and saw Fluffy, and Hermione noticed that there was a trapdoor..."

"Hmm," answered Dumbledore cryptically, and then turned to Draco. "And how long have you known of it?"

"Probably almost as long as they have," he said. "Potter asked for my help figuring out who could want to get at the Stone, and he let slip that there was a cerberus guarding something, and I told them who Nicholas Flamel was right before the Christmas holiday, and that's when they figured out that it was the Philosopher's Stone."

"And what conclusions did you make with Mr. Potter?"

"He was convinced for the longest time that it was Professor Snape, but I hardly think _that_'s likely. Apparently they saw Snape's lips moving at the Quidditch match where Potter's broom got jinxed, and they saw him heading off somewhere that _wasn't_ the dungeons on Halloween when the troll was let in, but I told them that he was probably trying to perform a counter-jinx, and that he was probably checking the Stone to make sure no one _else_ was trying to get at it while all of the professors were distracted by the troll." By the time Draco finally stopped to breathe, he saw Dumbledore twinkling at him like mad. "We thought that the only likely person left was Quirrell."

"But Snape was threatening Professor Quirrell in the Forest!" burst out Neville.

"Which would make sense if Professor Snape was protecting the Stone and Quirrell was trying to figure out how to get past everything," said Draco.

"But Snape's _evil_," said Ron, and Dumbledore suddenly chuckled.

"What imaginations children have," he said, and they stared at him. "You are correct in thinking that Fluffy is guarding the Philosopher's Stone. You are again correct in thinking that the professors here at Hogwarts have all helped to guard it with many layers of defences. Mr. Malfoy, you and Mr. Potter are correct in your conclusions about Professor Snape. However, Professor Quirrell is _also_ helping to guard the Stone.

"All of that being said, I would hope that you leave the protection of the Stone to us. I would also hope that you realize that it was moved here because someone attempted to steal if from Gringotts; whomever that was, they are likely still after it, and _that_ will be your culprit." Dumbledore stood. "Now, I believe that you should all receive detention, though not nearly so many as your Slytherin friends. Oh, and Mr. Longbottom: fifteen points will be awarded to you for your demonstration of self-defence. Mr. Weasley: fifteen points to you as well for your attempts to end the fight. And Mr. Malfoy: twenty-five points to Hufflepuff for your defence of your friend.

"And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some urgent business with the Ministry. Good day."


	9. Chapter 9

Life was most certainly _not_ perfect.

Draco had not received a letter from Tonks in over a week, and she'd been due to start her real Auror duties, having graduated the Auror Academy, and so now he had to worry about whether or not she was hurt; the fifty points Dumbledore had initially deducted from Hufflepuff for his fighting were added to the twenty-five he'd given back for defending Neville and the thirty-two points he'd managed to earn before the incident, and so now he'd only gotten Hufflepuff a measly seven house points; he had a detention coming up the following week for the fight; his attempts at mending his relationship with his still informally betrothed Pansy Parkinson had been a rather spectacular failure; he was tired from Quidditch practices, and _Snape_ had been the referee for the last match against Gryffindor—not that Draco really minded the Potions Master, but he knew that the man hated Quidditch, and so the professor had been a terror on the pitch, and they'd lost the match five minutes in when stupid bloody Potter caught the Snitch. So, no, life was most assuredly _not_ perfect for Draco Lucius Malfoy.

"Er, are you okay?" Neville asked as he watched his friend shredding their Valeghiri leaves with undue force, a rather angry look on his face. They were, as always, partnered in Herbology.

"No, Neville," snapped Draco. "I am not bloody _okay_."

"What's wrong?"

"_Everything is wrong_!" he hissed. The Cedric-voice in his head told him that he was being a bit melodramatic, but he mentally roared at it to _shut up_. It obeyed.

"If you're upset about losing points from the fight," he said, "then, well, I'm sorry."

"That wasn't your fault, Neville," sighed Draco, feeling a bit bad for taking his temper out on Neville. "I hit Nott first, after all."

"Oh. Well, you shouldn't be upset at all about that anyway, because none of your housemates seem to be."

"We aren't," assured Susan from the table next to theirs where she was working with Justin.

"Thirty-two points," said Draco. "I had _thirty-two_ points, and now I have _seven_."

"You keep track of how many points you get?" asked Justin, sounding surprised and amused.

"Of course," answered Draco. "Don't you?"

"Well, no." Draco scowled, and turned back to his mangled Valeghiri leaves. He almost couldn't help overhearing the Gryffindor trio next to him. Almost, but then, he didn't really try.

"Why are we _here_, Hermione?" That was Weasley.

"We can't just skip class, Ron, _honestly_," she hissed back, trying to be quiet, but the tables were close together, and Draco heard every word.

"How many times in our lives are we going to see a dragon hatching?" Draco's heart skipped a beat.

"We've got lessons," Hermione was saying, "we'll get into trouble, and that's nothing to what Hagrid's going to be in when someone finds out what he's doing-"

"Shut up!" That was Harry Potter, who seemed to have noticed Draco staring at them. Potter sighed. "Look, Malfoy, don't-"

"Hagrid is hatching a _dragon_ _egg_?" said Draco, barely managing to keep his voice hushed.

Seeing that Draco was not going to easily forget about what he'd just heard, Potter sighed. "Yes. He is."

"I... no," said Draco, shaking his head. "_No_."

"Er, Malfoy?" Potter seemed concerned now, and both boys had forgotten their Valeghiri leaves entirely. "Are you alright?"

"Of course I'm not!" yelled Draco, and the class now stopped what they were supposed to be doing to listen to his outburst—Professor Sprout included. "Just... _no_. A cerberus in the school to protect a powerful magical artefact I can handle. Your broom getting jinxed because you're _Harry Potter_ I can handle, too. Someone letting a troll into the school is a bit of a stretch, but apparently I handled that just fine, thank you very much. However, I refuse to believe that there is a _dragon_ at Hogwarts. That would be the last bloody straw!" He was hyperventilating, now, and his fellow students were looking at him with varying degrees of interest, pity, concern, and shock. Professor Sprout laid a hand on his shoulder.

"What's this about a dragon, Mr. Malfoy?" Draco wanted to tell her that Hagrid had been stupid enough to bring a dragon egg onto school grounds and was going to try to _raise it himself_, the absolute _oaf_, and that she needed to _get it far, far __**away**_ _from him_, but one look at the mingled anger and desperation on Potter, Weasley, and Granger's faces, and he swallowed thickly.

"I think Draco misunderstood, Professor," said Granger calmly, though her eyes were fixed on his, pleading with him to go along with the deception. "We were talking about Ron's brother Charlie who trains dragons in Romania." Professor Sprout peered down at them with a sceptical expression.

"Mr. Malfoy?" She looked to her own house student for confirmation. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"That must have been it," he said. "I've been a little on edge since fighting with Nott, and the troll, and-" He lowered his voice to a whisper. "-finding out about the Philosopher's Stone. I just... well, it's all very stressful, isn't it?" Draco looked at his head of house with the biggest, widest eyes he could, knowing that the expression tended to work wonders on women. His head of house was no exception, her expression immediately becoming sympathetic and concerned.

"You do look a bit pale," she said, and Draco decided not to mention that he was _always_ pale. She pressed a hand to his forehead and Draco, unaccustomed to such contact, tried to twist away instinctively. "Hmm, you don't have a fever. Perhaps you'd better go back up to the castle and lie down, though. Maybe send a letter to your parents?"

"Yes," he said slowly, picking up his bag, "that sounds... nice. Thank you, Professor. I'm sorry for the disturbance." She gave him a kind smile, and Draco felt a pang of guilt for lying to her.

"It's quite alright, dear. Now, off you go, I'm sure Mr. Longbottom can handle things here."

Draco did leave, but he didn't go to the castle; instead, he headed straight for Hagrid's hut.

When he knocked on the door, the big man took over a minute to answer, only opening the door a crack, peering suspiciously down at the first-year.

"Er, Hufflepuff, are ye? Lost, then?"

"No," he said, "I know exactly where I am. I need to speak with you—it's rather urgent."

"With me?" asked Hagrid, sounding surprised.

"Yes," said Draco. "It's about your _dragon_." Before he knew what was happening, Draco was being _picked up_ by one of the man's massive hands, dragged inside, and set down in a rather large armchair. Draco stared at him wide eyes.

"Now how do ye know about that?" demanded Hagrid, standing over him in a rather intimidating manner.

"I heard Potter, Weasley, and Granger talking about it," he said quickly, and then swallowed nervously. "You musn't keep it, you know. It's too _dangerous_-" He jumped as he heard a cracking sound, and saw on the table what must be the dragon egg. "Oh, no, it's not hatching _now_, not while I'm here!"

They heard the chimes from the castle signalling the end of the teaching period, and Draco knew that the three Gryffindors would be there at any moment. Maybe then he could escape, he could get back to the castle and... And do what? He frowned. Who would he tell? Who _could_ he tell?

"You just stay put there," ordered Hagrid gruffly, "I got ter watch 'im hatch now."

Draco stared in fascinated horror at the table, where it was no emitting a funny clicking noise. There came another knock on the door, and Draco looked up, hoping that it would be a professor, coming to take the egg away, but it was just the Gryffindors. They barely spared him a glance as they came inside, crowding around the egg. He wondered why they were getting so _close_ to it, because even a hatchling could bite and _breathe fire_.

"I think I'll be going now," said Draco, his voice rather weak and far-away to his own ears.

"Don't even think about it," said Hagrid. "I need ter know yer not going ter tell."

"He lied to Professor Sprout for you," said Potter, "after, er, screaming a bit."

"I did not scream," said Draco indignantly. Potter shot him a highly amused glance. "I... well, I was simply startled."

All at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped onto the table. From his position in the corner, Draco could barely see it, but it looked like a mass of black scales and horns and bulging, orange eyes.

It sneezed. A couple of sparks flew out of its snout—Draco gave a rather undignified yelp. No one seemed to hear him.

"Isn't he _beautiful_?" Hagrid murmured, and Draco wondered just how _sane_ the gamekeeper really was. Hagrid reached out a hand to stroke the dragon's head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs. While they weren't much at the moment, Draco knew that they could grow to be over a foot long, and he gulped down a nervous breath. "Bless him, look, he knows his mummy!"

"I'd... _really_ like to be going now," said Draco, standing; Hagrid stood as well, and Draco cringed away from the big man. "Don't you _manhandle _me again."

"Er, sorry 'bout that," apologized Hagrid awkwardly, "but I had ter be sure! But if Harry says yer okay, then I believe him."

"Yes, well, thank you for that inspiring vote of confidence," he said, and then turned to glare at Harry Potter. "As for _you_."

"Me?" asked Potter, sounding amused.

"Of course you! You seem to be what all of the trouble in the whole school revolves around, and you even made me lie to my head of house, and I _do not want to be involved_," he said, "so leave me alone!"

"Alright then, Malfoy," agreed Potter with a shrug. "But thanks. For helping figure out the Stone and for helping Hagrid." Draco gave a curt nod.

"You should not know about the Stone," Hagrid was saying as he left. "Even if ye do know 'bout the Stone, you won't know how ter get past Fluffy! Only Dumbledore and I know that you need ter play him music to set him straight to sleep—I should not have said that."

_No_. Draco slammed the door with rather unnecessary force. He had _not_ just heard the piece of information Quirrell needed to get past the Stone. He didn't know anything about dangerous magical objects and beasts on the third floor and he certainly didn't know anything about a _dragon_.

If the oaf died in a fire caused by his own bloody pet, then so be it. That wasn't Draco's concern.

He dawdled yet again at the end of the next Potions class anyway.

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape rarely sounded irritated anymore when Draco stayed after class, instead seeming more resigned than anything.

"I know how to get past the cerberus," said Draco bluntly, and Snape's eyes rolled skyward, as though praying for patience. "I'm not _planning_ to—there are probably even more dangerous things guarding the Stone than that, of course, and I have no reason to _want_ it, but I just wanted you to know that I knew."

"Why?" demanded Snape, tone now very curt. Draco wasn't put off, since he was used to it by now.

"Well, if I heard Hagrid tell the first time I ever spoke to him, then it's not very likely that he's much good at keeping a secret, is it?" asked Draco rhetorically. "So it's very likely that Quirrell knows by now, since he's had almost a whole year to get it out of Hagrid."

"Thank you for the warning, Mr. Malfoy," said Snape in his more normal silky threatening tones, his voice laced with sarcasm. "I assure you, the situation is under control. Now _go_."

* * *

><p>Draco tried very, very hard to be very, very good the next week. He kept mostly to the Hufflepuff common room, leaving only for classes, meals, Quidditch practice, and his regular study sessions with Neville, Justin, and Susan. Eventually, he ran out of homework to do, and brought back out the book Snape had given him at Christmas.<p>

"You've been awfully... quiet lately," Cedric said, sitting down next to him. "Is something wrong?"

"I have to be on my guard whenever I leave the common room,because apparently I'm becoming almost as big a target for trouble as Potter," Draco explained, "so it's much easier to stay here most of the time."

"You haven't been in that much trouble," he said, and then frowned. "Well, okay, there aren't many first-years who get sent to Dumbledore's office. But other than that..."

"Please," snorted Draco sceptically, "don't pretend not to know what's been going on this year. I told you all of it!"

"Yes, but you're not _really_ involved in all of that," said Cedric dismissively. "Potter just talked to you about it, right?"

"That's more involved than I ever wanted to be," said Draco. Cedric shook his head, smiling.

"Most eleven-year-old boys would love the chance to have such a big adventure," he said. "I would have, my first year. I might still, come to think of it."

"Then most boys have some sort of death wish." Cedric laughed and shook his head.

"You might be a little paranoid, have you ever thought of that?" Draco frowned at Cedric, who rolled his eyes and bumped his shoulder. "I'm kidding. Mostly. You just... need to loosen up every once in a while. You don't always have to be afraid that the world is going to end, you know?" He stood, and caught sight of the book Draco was reading. "Interested in becoming a Healer, then?"

"Not particularly," said Draco with a shrug. "But I'm not ruling it out." Cedric smiled.

"You'd be good at it," he said. "You're good at Potions, and Charms, and you're bossy enough to rival Pomfrey." Draco glared, and chucked a quill at Cedric, who just laughed and ran off. Internally, though, the wheels in Draco's head were spinning. Healer Malfoy, he thought, and then smiled. It sounded rather nice.

* * *

><p>The next morning, Draco groaned as a note was delivered to him at breakfast. "<em>Your detention will take place at eleven o'clock tonight. Meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall. Professor M. McGonagall<em>"

He said goodbye to Cedric, Justin, and Susan that night and went down to the entrance hall, where he saw Mr. Filch already waiting, with several other students. He frowned. Neville and Weasley he'd been expecting, because they still had detention as well for the fight, but what were Potter and Granger doing there?

Catching sight of his curious look, Potter quietly murmured, "I'll explain later, but if it makes you feel better, the dragon's gone." Better? Draco felt ecstatic, and despite the fact that Filch was lecturing them as he led them across the grounds in the dark, he grinned broadly. That was one less dangerous beast to worry about, and that made for a very good day indeed.

"Is that you, Filch? Hurry up, I want ter get started." That was Hagrid, no doubt, and Draco saw all four Gryffindor's faces light up.

"I suppose you think you'll be enjoying yourself with that oaf?" said Filch, tone very nasty. "Well, think again—it's into the forest you're going and I'm much mistaken if you'll all come out in one piece."

At this, Neville let out a little moan, and Draco stopped dead in his tracks.

"The forest?" he repeated, sounding a little panicked. "We can't go in there at night—there's all sorts of things in there—werewolves, I've heard." Neville clutched at the sleeve of Draco's robe and made a choking noise.

"That's your problem, isn't it?" said Filch, his voice cracking with glee. "Should've thought of them werewolves before you got in trouble, shouldn't you?"

Draco missed the greetings between the big gamekeeper and the Gryffindors on account of his heart thumping ever louder and his blood rushing in his ears.

"I'm not going in that forest," Draco said to Hagrid, and the panic in his voice before was nothing compared to what he sounded like now.

"Yeh are if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts," said Hagrid fiercely. "Yeh've done wrong an' now yeh've got ter pay fer it." Draco felt his eyes water, but staunchly refused to cry.

"But-"

"It won't be that bad," reassured Potter quickly, seeing that Neville, too was growing ever more upset. "We'll be with Hagrid." There was a long moment of silence, and then Draco nodded jerkily.

"Right then," said Hagrid, "now, listen carefully, 'cause it's dangerous what we're gonna do tonight, an' I don' want no one takin' risks. Follow me over here a moment."

He led them to the very edge of the forest. Holding his lamp up high, he pointed down a narrow, winding earth track that disappeared into the thick black trees. A light breeze lifted their hair as they looked into the forest.

"Look there," said Hagrid, "see that stuff shinin' on the ground? Silvery stuff? That's unicorn blood. There's a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We're gonna try an' find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery."

"And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?" asked Draco, voice still trembling with fear.

"There's nothin' that lives in the forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang," said Hagrid. "An' keep ter the path. Right, now, we're gonna split inter two parties an' follow the train in diff'rent directions. There's blood all over the place, it must've bin staggerin' around since last night at least."

"I want Fang," said Draco quickly, looking at the dog's long teeth.

"All right, but I warn yeh, he's a coward," said Hagrid. "So me, Harry, an' Ron'll go one way an' Draco, Hermione, Neville, an' Fang'll go the other. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we'll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an' practice now—that's it—an' if anyone gets into trouble, send up red sparks, an' we'll all come an' find yeh—so, be careful—let's go."

The forest was black and silent. A little way into it they reached a fork in the earth path, and Potter, Hagrid, and Weasley took the left path while Draco, Neville, Granger, and Fang took the right.

They walked in silence for a long time, and Draco wished that he was with Potter so that he could hear why they had detention, and then he wished that he didn't have detention at all, and then he finally realized that Granger was there, too.

"Er, Granger," he said slowly, "why do you and Potter have detention?"

"We sent an owl to Ron's brother Charlie in Romania a while ago," she said, "and he agreed to take Norbert—that's what Hagrid named the dragon—back with him. We—Harry and I, that is, Ron couldn't go because he'd been bitten by Norbert, he's only here for fighting, like you—anyway, we took Norbert to the top of the Astronomy Tower so that they could pick him up, but we were caught by Filch."

"At least the dragon is out of the school," said Draco, a bit of his earlier happiness returning at the thought.

"It was rather dangerous," agreed Granger, "but thank you for lying to Sprout about it. Hagrid would have been in loads of trouble."

"Wait, there really _was_ a dragon?" asked Neville—Draco had forgotten that his friend hadn't known.

"Yes," answered Draco, "but it's gone now, apparently."

"Oh."

The three walked in near silence for a long time, more than half an hour, venturing into the heart of the forest. The only sounds to break through the quiet were Fang's soft panting and the crunch of leaves and twigs beneath their feet. Every now and again they could see splashes of unicorn blood on trees or the ground, but there was no sign of the actual creature.

And then they heard a scream, a high-pitched, ugly, fearful sound, and then some deeper yelling that Draco thought might be Hagrid's voice. They all looked first at the sky, but there were no red sparks.

"What do we do?" asked Neville, sounding panicked.

"We should go back," said Draco.

"Let's go," agreed Granger, and the three students, plus Fang, took off at a run back they way they had just come. They made it out fine, and waited for what felt like a very long time to Draco, though it might have been just minutes or nearly an hour, he couldn't really say.

"Should we find a professor?" asked Neville finally, but just then, Hagrid and Weasley and Potter were emerging from the forest, all of them looking shaken, wide-eyed, and pale—even Hagrid's normally ruddy cheeks had lost most of their colour.

"Harry! Ron!" cried Granger. "What happened?"

"I... the unicorn was dead," said Potter, his voice shaking. "There was someone there, someone who'd killed it, and they were drinking its blood." Draco felt his heart skip a beat—he didn't know much about unicorn blood, but he did know that to kill one of them was more than just illegal, it was a crime against nature, something that went straight to your very soul. "But... there was this centaur, Firenze, who fought him off long enough for Hagrid to get us away, and Firenze said..." Potter took a deep breath, and Weasley looked like he might faint had it not been for Hagrid's large hand on his shoulder, steadying him.

"He said that it was _Voldemort_."


	10. Chapter 10

In the weeks following his detention, Draco didn't go to Snape to tell him what Potter had said when he'd come out of the forest. He didn't mention it to Justin, or Susan, or even Cedric, and he didn't talk about it even with Neville, who'd been there too. The few times Potter had tried to talk to him, Draco had pretended not to see him and quickly turned around and walked in the opposite direction. He tried very hard not to think about what had happened, and when he couldn't help it, he tried convincing himself that Potter was mistaken, or that he was lying for attention, or that the centaur was wrong.

But he still couldn't get the image of Hagrid, Weasley, and Potter standing in front of the forest, pale and trembling, the Dark Lord's name on Potter's lips out of his head.

Draco was so distracted that, later, when he thought back on it, he realized Cedric's help was all that got him through exams. When the older boy woke up in the early hours of the morning to find Draco down in the common room, sitting by the slowly dying fire with a textbook on his lap, staring blankly at it, he would gently haul Draco back upstairs and force him to sleep—and Draco always had a feeling that Cedric was only awake because of him. When Draco was distracted when Professor Quirrell walked by when he was studying in the library, Cedric would throw a balled up piece of parchment at him to catch his attention.

To his credit, Cedric stopped asking what was wrong after the first few times, when Draco had just walked away.

But it was because of Cedric that Draco didn't panic, as Neville did, when their end of term exams finally came. He felt prepared, having studied, although he did feel a bit nervous. They took their written exams in a large classroom Draco had never been in before, and it was incredibly hot, the atmosphere stifling. They'd been given special, new quills for the exams, which had been bewitched with an Anti-Cheating spell; Draco's several times shushed him loudly when he began to think out loud during the exam, muttering to himself quietly.

The practical exams were easier for Draco than the written ones for some reason. Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a pineapple tap-dance across a desk; Professor McGonagall watched them turn a mouse into a snuffbox—points were given for how pretty the snuffbox was, but taken away if it had whiskers; Snape made even Draco nervous, though, breathing down everyone's necks whiel they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion.

Draco did the besst he could, trying to ignore the way Potter had begun rubbing at his scar, wincing as though it was hurting him.

The very last exam for first-years was History of Magic. One hour of answering questions about batty old wizards who'd invented self-sitrring cauldrons and they'd be free, free for a whole wonderful week until their exam results came out. When the ghost of Professor Binns told them to put down their quills and roll up their parchment, Draco couldn't help cheering with the rest of his classmates.

"That was loads easier than I thought it would be," said Neville happily, and Justin was nodding along with him. Privately, Draco agreed—he'd really only had trouble with his Defence Against the Dark Arts exam; despite the fact that the person after the Philosopher's Stone now seemed to be the Dark Lord, if Harry Potter was to be believed, or some anonymous thief as Dumbledore had seemed to think, Draco couldn't shake the uneasy feeling he had around the stuttering professor.

"Who wants to go down to the lake?" asked Susan, stretching, and the group agreed, even though it was rather crowded, most of the students wanting to be outside on such a nice day, free after all of their exams. Seeing Potter and his friends under a tree of their own, Draco resolutely led the way to another tree on entirely the opposite side.

"It's going to be weird, going home for the summer," said Justin as they flopped down onto the shady grass. "I've gotten so used to ghosts floating around, and moving staircases, talking portraits..."

"And floating candles instead of el-ec-tricity," intoned Draco slowly, and Justin broke out in a wide grin, nodding. Draco felt a flash of pride and happiness.

"My gran's going to be unbearable," moaned Neville. "She's going to want to hear every little detail of the year!"

"My mum promised to take me to see her new office at the Ministry when I get home this summer," Susan told them all. "Maybe I'll even see the Minister!"

"Fudge?" said Draco. "He's a bit... well, boring."

"You've met him?" she asked, eyes wide.

"Of course," answered Draco casually. "He often comes to at least one of Mother and Father's parties every year, usually the Christmas one." They stared at him, and he flushed.

"My gran once told me that your family is so rich that it's sickening," said Neville, his voice teasing, but Justin looked curious.

"How much money _do_ you have?"

"We have about thirty-four million galleons in our vault," said Draco flatly, deciding to ignore the fact that it was a question none of his Slytherin friends would have asked, "and some in investments, but Mother doesn't like it when Father discusses money with me, so I'm not sure how much." There was silence, and Draco's face only grew hotter.

"That _is_ sickening," said Neville, breaking the silence for him, and Draco hit him, but grinned to show that he appreciated it.

As the conversation turned back towards the much safer realm of their exams, Draco wished that he hadn't noticed the Gryffindor Golden Trio running frantically in the direction of Hagrid's hut.

* * *

><p>"It's really late," said Cedric conversationally as he sat down across from Draco near the fire. The rest of Hufflepuff had already gone to bed, ready to rest after the long days and nights of studying for their exams. Draco had his book on Hufflepuff and Slytherin's healing magic with him again, and he looked up from it to give Cedric a raised eyebrow.<p>

"Is _that_ why it's dark outside?" Cedric laughed and threw a pillow at him which Draco easily ducked.

"You should go to bed," he told Draco. He frowned. He was tired, really, but he was too worried to sleep. He shrugged.

"I'm not tired," he lied to Cedric, who grinned at him and gave an exaggerated shrug back.

"Alright, then," he said. "I'll leave you to it, Healer Malfoy." Cedric reached over without warning and ruffled Draco's hair, causing the blond to squawk indignantly. Laughing, Cedric ran up to his dormitory before Draco could retaliate.

Draco felt somehow better than before, and before he knew it, he had fallen asleep in the chair, his torso curled over his book.

He was woken up by the faint, muffled sound of yelling, and as he lazily picked his head up, Draco wondered where it was coming from. Closing the book and getting up, he left it on the chair and listened intently—it was coming from the part of the wall where the entrance to the common room would be. Walking over, he held his breath, listening. He could barely make out the words.

"-don't know what Hufflepuff would use as a password, but it's really important that you open up for me!" Draco frowned—that was Neville. He pushed on the wall, and it swung open.

"We don't have a password, Neville," he told the boy plainly, "because you have to tap the barrels in front of the wall the right way for it to open. What are you doing here?" Neville was panting, looking frantically panicked, glancing worriedly around him.

"Hermione put a body-bind on me," he said, "and then the three of them—Harry, Ron, and her—they left the common room. The jinx wore off just a few minutes ago, and I came straight here, but it must have been an hour they've been gone, at least, and I think they've gone to get the Stone!"

Draco's insides went cold.

"Why would you think that?" he asked, his voice flat.

"Dumbledore's gone," said Neville. "He went to the Ministry earlier, and he's not back yet, and the Stone was only safe as long as he was here—I heard Harry say that!"

"I... why did you come _here_?" he asked Neville, who bit his lip.

"I didn't know what else to do," he admitted sheepishly. "You always seem to know everything." Draco took a deep, steadying breath, trying to calm himself. No matter what he did, it seemed that he was going to get pulled into Potter's stupid, foolhardy, reckless, _Gryffindor_ adventures anyway.

"Fine," snapped Draco, turning to set his book down on a table. "Do you know where Professor Snape's office is?" Neville nodded, looking confused.

"Yeah, but why-"

"Go there, quickly," he said. Neville blanched, and Draco knew how frightened his friend was of their Potions Master, and he let out an impatient huff of breath. "Just trust me, Neville. Go!" The Gryffindor hesitated for one moment longer, and then took off running.

Draco watched Neville go for a moment, and wondered what in the name of Merlin was _wrong_ with himself, and then set off for the third-floor corridor on the right hand side.

The door was unlocked when he got there, and it swung open with only the barest squeak. Draco caught a glimpse of a discarded harp near an open trapdoor in the dim light, and then the cerberus was picking up its heads, sniffing the air, glowering at him, beginning to growl—Draco wanted to turn and run, but he thought of Neville's panicked face, and of the pale faces of Hagrid, Weasley, and Potter coming out of the Forbidden Forest that night—there was no way Draco could reach the harp, and he hadn't brought an instrument with him... He grimaced.

"_Hogwarts, Hogwarts, hoggy, warty Hogwarts-_" The beast paused, looking confused, but it had stopped growling and Draco edged a bit closer to the trapdoor. "-_teach us something please! Whether we be old and bold or young with scabby knees_-" The cerberus laid its heads back down, but it was still eyeing him distrustfully. He took another step towards the hole in the floor. "-_our heads can do with filling with some interesting stuff, for now they're bare, and full of air, dead flies, and bits of fluff!_" Two of its three heads had closed its eyes, and Draco was only two steps from the trapdoor. "_So teach us things worth knowing, bring back what we've forgot! Just do your best-_" One more step; the last head closed its eyes. "_-we'll do the rest, and learn until our brains all rot!_" Draco jumped.

"Ouch!" he cried out as he landed hard on a stone floor. He slowly picked himself up, looking at the shrivelled remnants of a dead plant around him. Peering at it closely, he identified it as Devil's Snare, and he grinned to himself for a moment. Those Herbology sessions with Neville must've paid off some, then. His grin faded as he saw another door. He opened it slowly, keeping a tight grip on his wand, and saw a room filled with birds—but they were shining, and... Draco blinked—they weren't birds at all, but keys. In a corner was a broomstick, and Draco sighed. He squinted at the keys, and saw one which looked very tattered and beaten up, its blue wings crumpled as it tried to fly.

In the end, it was relatively easy to catch, and he frowned to himself as he unlocked the next door. If it was this easy for him to go through, then what about someone who really wanted to steal the Stone? Someone like-

He didn't let himself finish the sentence, even in his own head, instead pushing open the door and trying to ignore his rapidly beating heart.

This room was large, and dimly lit, but Draco could see a chessboard, and the evidence that a game of wizard's chess had just been played, with large chunks of destroyed pieces still lying on the board, or off to the sides. Draco sucked in a breath as he saw Ron Weasley lying slumped against one wall. He quickly walked around the sides of the chessboard to get the other boy. One of the black pieces turned and held up a sword threateningly, barring his way. He gulped down a nervous breath.

"I'm not trying to get to the other side of the room," he said, "I promise. I just want to see if he's okay." The piece seemed to study him for a long moment, and then moved back to its original position. Draco went to the other boy.

"Weasley, wake up," he snapped, but the redhead's eyes remained closed. Draco could see blood on one side of his face from a wound on his forehead. He slapped the Gryffindor firmly, but not too hard, on one cheek. Still he remained unconscious. What was Draco supposed to _do_?

And then he remembered the book about Slytherin and Hufflepuff.

He took a deep, steadying breath, and levelled his wand at the unconscious boy. "_Enervate_!" The Gryffindor stirred, his eyes fluttering open, and Draco felt a rush of relief.

"Malfoy?" croaked Weasley. "What're you doing here?"

"Neville got me," he explained. "Where are Potter and Granger?"

"Went through to the next room—had to sacrifice myself to win the game—they had to stop Snape-"

"It isn't Snape, you idiot," snapped Draco, pushing aside Weasley's hair to look at the cut on his forehead. It wasn't too deep, but it was still bleeding. The other boy tried to squirm out of Draco's grasp. "Hold _still_, would you?" He raised his wand again. "_Episkey_." The blood remained, but the cut had closed. "Better?"

"Yeah," confirmed Weasley, though he was still looking a little doubtfully at him.

"We should go send word to-"

"Ron!" They both turned to see Granger coming back through the door on the other side of the room. "Malfoy, what are you doing here?"

"Neville," said Draco simply, and regret briefly passed over her features before she simply nodded.

"We need to send an owl to Professor Dumbledore," she said. "There was a troll, but he was already knocked out, and the next thing was a logic game with potions, and there was only enough for one of us to go through, and Harry took it-"

"Why are we still _here_?" snapped Draco. "Let's _go_." He turned and began running back the way they had come, and Weasley and Granger followed him wordlessly. All three were out of breath by the time they reached the ladder that went back up to the trapdoor, and Granger reached out to grab both Draco and Weasley.

"We don't have anything to play for Fluffy!" she said, looking deeply worried, and Draco grimaced again, climbing up the ladder, beginning to sing the school song. Only moments later, he heard the other two join him, and unlike at the Welcoming Feast, they matched his tune and tempo, and so it wasn't quite the same unbearable din. They sang quietly as they crept past the loudly snoring cerberus, and once they had gone back out the door, Draco leaned heavily against it, glaring at the other two first-years.

"_Never again_," he snapped. "Do you understand me?" Draco's voice was panicked, almost frantic, as all of the fear he had pushed aside while going past the obstacles rushed through him.

"Malfoy-"

"And here I thought you were so keen to stay out of it, Mr. Malfoy." Draco felt himself sag in relief at the drawling voice of Professor Snape. He glanced at the staircase and saw Snape ascending it, holding onto one of Neville's ears. The Potions Master stopped short, glowering at them. Draco noted dully that the professor still seemed to be wearing his usual black robes; he wondered if Snape slept in them. "Where is Mr. Potter?"

"He went through your potions logic game, sir," said Granger. "There was only enough for one of us-" Immediately, Snape let go of Neville's ear.

"Stay, all of you," he said, and then he pushed Draco aside and went to face the cerberus, slamming the door behind him.

On the landing, there was only stunned silence.

"I guess it wasn't Snape," said Weasley, rather grudgingly.

"Oh, honestly, Ron," snapped Granger, "how can you possibly be thinking of that now? We need to send an owl to Dumbledore, Harry's in danger, and Dumbledore needs to come back-"

"Dumbledore is already here, my dear, if you'll forgive the rhyme." Draco laughed in relief, and sat down on the stairs, no longer trusting his shaking legs to hold him up. "If you'll excuse my poor manners, it would seem that I must retrieve Mr. Potter. Off to Madame Pomfrey with all of you." Then he, too, went through the door, although he closed it far more quietly than Snape had, but with no less urgency.

Again, silence. It was Draco who broke it this time.

"I missed most of the excitement, didn't I?" He saw Granger and Weasley glance at each other, and then to him.

"Yes," they said together, and Draco nodded, smiling.

"_Good_. Now, could you help me up, Neville? I think I'm still shaking."

The four of them received quite the tongue-lashing from Madame Pomfrey, although she could find nothing seriously wrong with any of them. As she checked Weasley over, however, she frowned.

"Were you injured?"

"Yeah," he said, "but Malfoy here fixed it." The mediwitch turned to him.

"What did you use?"

"'Episkey,'" answered Draco as she stared at him, not sure whether he had done something wrong or not.

"Impressive for a first-year," she said, "but next time, leave the healing to me."

"Yes ma'am. Er, thank you."

Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout chose that moment to make an entrance.

"What is the meaning of this?" demanded Professor McGonagall, glaring at all of them, looking positively furious. All of them shrunk back in the face of her anger.

"Professor, someone—we don't know who—but someone was going after the Stone tonight, and we had to stop them," said Granger desperately.

"And you thought it a better idea to go yourselves than to wake a professor?" she asked.

"We tried to tell you earlier," protested Weasley, and McGonagall sighed noisily.

"I suppose you did at that," she admitted, "but it was still extremely foolish to go yourselves!"

"Yes, Professor," they chorused, sounding contrite. Draco hadn't realized he was smirking until Professor Sprout rounded on him.

"And what did you think you were doing, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Er, well, Neville came to tell me what they'd done, and he was a bit panicked, so I sent him to get Professor Snape, because Professor Snape has been helping all year, but I... well, I wasn't sure it could wait, if they were hurt," said Draco in a rush, suddenly feeling very stupid for rushing off after them. "And Weasley _was_ hurt!" McGonagall's gaze softened marginally as she turned to the boy.

"Are you quite well?"

"Malfoy fixed it," he said, pointing to his temple where dried blood had gathered and Madame Pomfrey had not cleaned yet. Professor Sprout gave Draco a reluctant smile.

"We'll still be writing to your parents to tell them what you've done," said Professor McGonagall.

"No!" they all shouted at once. The teachers looked alarmed.

"My parents are already convinced that magic is dangerous," said Granger. "If you told them about this..."

"And my mum would go nuts," moaned Weasley. "She'd never let me out of the house again!"

"Perhaps you could just mis-deliver mine?" asked Draco hopefully. "I'm sure my cousin Tonks would really love to hear about it. My mother, well, perhaps not."

The double-doors to the infirmary banged open then, and in came a limping Potions Master, and Professor Dumbledore, holding an unconscious Harry Potter in his arms.

"Bloody beast just _fixates_ on my leg," said Snape bitterly, and Draco grinned marginally. Dumbledore set Potter down on an empty bed, and Pomfrey immediately went to him.

"Albus, what _happened_?" she asked, whipping out her wand again and casting diagnostic spells in quick succession, frowning at the results.

"In a moment, dear madame," he said. "Perhaps, Minerva, Pomona, you could return your house members to their beds? It is quite late, and they've had a very eventful day."

How Dumbledore expected them to sleep, Draco didn't know, but even so, he clutched his book to his chest and sat down in the armchair by the fire again, and was asleep before he could even think to open it.

* * *

><p>The end-of-year feast had the students all chattering, relaying rumours to each other about what, exactly, had happened that night a week ago. Draco felt rather smug, knowing more of the story than most, but he never did ask for the rest of it. He hadn't been joking when he'd told the Gryffindors "never again."<p>

Draco sat between Cedric and Justin at the feast with Susan across from him, just listening contentedly to the conversations around him, and looking around at the Great Hall. It was decked out in the Slytherin colours of green and silver to celebrate Slytherin's winning the house cup for the seventh year in a row. A huge banner showing the Slytherin serpent covered the wall behind the staff table.

When Potter walked in there was a sudden hush, and then everybody started talking loudly at once. Draco didn't say any word, though, as Potter slipped into a seat between Weasley and Granger at the Gryffindor table. Cedric didn't, either. Dumbledore arrived only moments later, and the babble died away.

"Another year gone!" Dumbledore said cheerfully. "And I must trouble you with an old man's wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are all a little fuller than they were..." Draco grimaced yet again at the reminder of the school song. "...you have the whole summer ahead to get them nice and empty before next year starts...

"Now, as I understand it, the house cup here needs awarding, and the points stand thus: In fourth place, Gryffindor, with three hundred and twelve points; in third, Ravenclaw, with four hundred and twenty-six; in second, Hufflepuff with four hundred and twenty-seven; and Slytherin, four hundred and seventy-two." A storm of cheering and stamping broke out from the Slytherin table.

"Yes, yes, well done, Slytherin," said Dumbledore. "However, recent events must be taken into account." Draco sat up straighter; the room went very still. The Slytherins' smiles faded a little.

"Ahem," said Dumbledore. "I have a few last-minute points to dish out. Let me see. Yes...

"First—to Mr. Draco Malfoy..."

All of the heads in the Great Hall seemed to turn towards the Hufflepuff table, and Draco tried to sink down in his seat.

"...for loyalty to his classmates, bravery, and his desire to help others, I award Hufflepuff house fifty points."

The Hufflepuff table clapped, though they were somewhat confused; Draco looked guilty at the Slytherin table, as they had just overtaken them. They were glaring back at him. He looked away.

"To Mr. Ronald Weasley..." The Gryffindor went purple in the face; he looked like a radish with a bad sunburn. "...for the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years, I award Gryffindor house fifty points." Gryffindor cheers nearly raised the bewitched ceiling; the stars overhead seemed to quiver.

At last there was silence again.

"To Miss Hermione Granger... for the use of cool logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor house fifty points." Granger buried her face in her hands as the table roared again.

"To Mr. Harry Potter..." said Dumbledore. The room went deadly quiet. "...for pure nerve and outstanding courage, I award Gryffindor house sixty points."

The din was deafening. Those who could add up while yelling themselves hoarse knew that Gryffindor now had four hundred and seventy-two points—exactly the same as Slytherin—though it didn't matter, because Hufflepuff still stood five points ahead of both.

Dumbledore raised his hand. The room gradually fell silent.

"There are all kinds of courage," said Dumbledore, smiling. "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr. Neville Longbottom."

Someone standing outside the Great Hall might well have thought some sort of explosion had taken place, so loud was the noise that erupted from the Gryffindor table. Draco, who knew that Neville had never won Gryffindor any points before, couldn't begrudge his friend his happiness as he was buried beneath a pile of his excited housemates—even as Draco saw several of his Slytherin classmates looking more than a little unhappy.

"Which means," Dumbledore called over the storm of applause, "we need a little change of decoration."

He clapped his hands. In an instant, the green hangings became scarlet and the silver became gold; the huge Slytherin serpent vanished and a towering Gryffindor lion took its place.

When Neville looked in his direction, Draco smiled at him, but he couldn't honestly say that he was very happy. He only picked at his food, much as he had during the Welcoming Feast. Few people around him noticed, too busy congratulating him on the points he'd been awarded. Cedric gave him an inquisitive glance, but Draco shrugged him off.

As the feast ended, and the students rose from their tables to head back to their dormitories for their last night in the castle, Draco stood and began to push through the sea of people towards the head table, again as he had that first night. Cedric stopped him this time.

"What're you doing?" Draco smiled at his friend.

"I'm making things fair."

Finally, when the crowd had thinned enough for Draco to get through, he saw Professor Dumbledore walking away from the head table and chased after him. "Professor Dumbledore!" he called, and the headmaster turned, giving him a cheerful, benevolent smile.

"Mr. Malfoy. What can I do for you?" he asked. Draco's courage nearly failed him under that scrutinizing, though still very kind, gaze, especially as he knew that all of the professors were watching him.

"I... er, well... I know it doesn't matter, because it won't give Slytherin back the house cup, but I'm... well, it doesn't seem very fair to me to change things like that at the last second," he said in a rush, and Dumbledore blinked at him in surprise, "so I was hoping you'd take back the points you gave me."

"They were well deserved," he said.

"Maybe," said Draco, "but Slytherin earned their points, too." Dumbledore stared at him for a long moment, and then gave him a very wide, very happy smile.

"Perhaps it would have been wiser to put those points toward next year," acknowledged Dumbledore, "and so, as you wish, Slytherin will begin next term with a lead of one-hundred points." Draco grinned—this was more than he'd hoped for.

"Thank you, Professor," he said, and made to walk away. Dumbledore gently reached out to touch his shoulder, halting him.

"And because of your desire for fair play, Mr. Malfoy," he said, "Hufflepuff will begin next term with a lead of seventy-five points." He gaped at the headmaster, and then smiled.

"_Thank you_," he said. Dumbledore patted his shoulder.

"Goodnight, Mr. Malfoy." He moved off, and Draco began heading towards the exit of the Great Hall. Professor Snape stopped him this time.

"Why did you do that, Mr. Malfoy?" he asked, sounding genuinely confused, and curious. Draco shrugged.

"A Slytherin would've kept those points, and been happy," he said, "and apparently a Gryffindor, too. But I'm neither." Snape raised an eyebrow, and Draco smiled. "I wanted to be _fair_."

"Fair?" repeated Snape, his eyebrows rising.

"Yes," answered Draco, "fair. Because I'm a _Hufflepuff_."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>This is the end of the first year arc! I hope that everyone enjoyed it. That being said, I'm going to be taking a break for at least a week before I start posting the second years' chapters.

**Retroactive disclaimer:** It all belongs to JKR, and whomever else she shared rights with.

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed, and everyone who will review!**


	11. Chapter 11

Dobby liked Master Draco far better when he came back from Hogwarts for the summer. He remembered the old Master Draco, who was always strutting around the Manor with the same ugly, arrogant sneer as Master Lucius, and he remembered how the old Master Draco used to speak to him.

All of this was why Dobby stood in Draco's large bedroom, staring at the now twelve-year-old boy incredulously. "M... Master?" he asked.

"Oh, _honestly_," said Draco, exasperated by the elf. "Do you not believe me?" He sounded a bit angry at that, and Dobby cringed, even though Draco had never been quite as bad as his father when it came to punishing their house elves.

"Dobby is confused, Master," explained Dobby quickly. "Master Draco has never gone against Master Lucius before..."

"Yes, I have," he said. "And I'll tell you about it if you tell me where you were."

Now Dobby had a problem. He was very, very curious about what Draco was offering to tell him, and he was surprised that Draco wasn't simply _ordering_ Dobby to tell him where he'd gone—in fact, he was promising not to tell his father that Dobby had left the house without permission...

"Dobby is wanting to hear first," said the elf, voice very small and afraid as he cowered, afraid that Draco would change his mind at any second and hurt him.

"Fine," answered Draco with a shrug. "After I was sorted into Hufflepuff, Father came to the school to try to force the headmaster to put me into Slytherin. The headmaster offered to let me try the sorting hat on again, and Father didn't just _want_ me to, he _expected_ it. I didn't." Dobby eyed Draco thoughtfully, obviously considering whether or not Draco was lying to him—it wouldn't be the first time. But the elf remembered the happy, proud way Draco would speak of his Hufflepuff house, and his housemates and friends, and the way Mistress's smile would seem a little strained, and Master Lucius would sometimes walk away after making some mindless excuse. It was always Slytherin with the Master and Mistress, and yet Draco was happy in Hufflepuff. Dobby nodded.

"Master Draco must keep his promise not to tell Master Lucius," said Dobby, and Draco nodded.

"I already said I wouldn't tell him," snapped Draco, growing ever more impatient with the elf's uncooperative nature. "Now where were you?"

"Dobby was going to Surrey," revealed Dobby as though he was revealing something of great importance. "To Little Whinging, a place being called Privet Drive, Number 4."

"What's there?" asked the boy, leaning forward eagerly.

"Dobby was seeing Harry Potter."

"_No_," cried Draco immediately, and Dobby looked alarmed. "You were _not_ seeing Harry bloody Potter. I'm not even going to ask why you would say that, and do you know why?" Draco didn't wait for his house elf to give a reply, instead barrelling on with his rant. "Because that would just mean that I was going to get involved in yet another one of Potter's heroic mysteries! Do you know what I had to endure last year? There were trolls, and jinxes, and a cerberus, and the bloody Philosopher's Stone, and a _dragon_, and _then_ Potter claimed that he saw the sodding Dark Lord!" Dobby had gone very pale, his eyes wide, but Draco did not notice. "And _that_ can't be true because the Dark Lord is dead, because _Potter_ killed him!"

"Dobby is sorry he said anything to Master Draco about Harry Potter," the elf said morosely, and Draco suddenly sighed, his frantic anger gone.

"I'm sorry you did, too," he said. "You know what, Dobby? No matter what I tell you, if I ask if you know anything else about... whatever it is Potter's going to be getting up to this year, you mustn't tell me anything. Do you understand?" The house elf nodded eagerly.

"Yes, Master Draco," assured the elf, "Dobby is understanding. Dobby will tell Master Draco nothing about the diary-"

"_Dobby_."

* * *

><p>Luna Lovegood wasn't stupid.<p>

She knew that most people considered her rather mad, or at the very least peculiar, but because she was _not _mad—she didn't deny being peculiar, though—and she knew that she was actually rather intelligent, she knew that there was no Hogwarts house named Wibbledom. Luna knew that there were only four Hogwarts houses, and so when Fred and George Weasley who lived in the charming Burrow house across the town of Ottery St. Catchpole tried to tell her that she was perfect for the Hogwarts house of Wibbledom, she didn't believe it. She had wondered for a moment if they thought that she was mad enough to believe it, or if she was simply stupid or gullible, but then decided it didn't matter, because Ron Weasley—their own brother—had even been tricked by them into thinking that you had to wrestle a troll for your house placement. It was all in good fun.

However, because Luna Lovegood was intelligent, and too short to reach the overhead space where the trunks were supposed to be kept on the Hogwarts Express, she found the Weasley twins, tugged on the sleeves of their robes, and let her eyes well up with tears.

"What kind of Wibbledom will I be when I get to Hogwarts," she asked, managing to put just the right amount of panic and regret into her voice, although she couldn't completely rid herself of her slow, soft tones which made her sound rather dreamy and far away, "if I can't even put away my own trunk?"

Fred and George exchanged panicked glances, ones which Luna recognized almost immediately as the one boys got whenever there was a girl around who seemed as though she was about to cry.

"Er, Luna, where's-" That was George—she never really could tell how she told one twin from the next, since they were supposed to be identical, she just did, rather like their mother.

"-your dad gone to?"

"He didn't want to come through the barrier," said Luna, making sure to keep her eyes very wide and very moist, "because there are jasper-willow creepers in the bricks waiting to get you."

"...right," they said together, giving each other sceptical looks—what she'd just told them had been true, at least. Dad really was afraid of the jasper-willow creepers he'd seen mentioned in the nargle book.

"I wasn't afraid of the creepers, though!" stated Luna proudly, and honestly. "I wanted to be brave like a good Wibbledom." Fred and George's expressions grew a little more horrified as they looked at each other.

"What have you two been _telling _her?" That was a new voice, coming from behind her, and Luna turned around to see him. He was a tall, handsome boy with brown hair and grey eyes and broad shoulders. He was giving Fred and George a stern look, although he somehow still managed to seem very friendly, and there was a badge with a "P" on his robes, telling her that he was a school Prefect.

"Er, well, we were just-" Fred spoke first this time.

"-going to help her put her trunk away," said George. They both finished off together with, "Right, Luna?"

"I think I can handle it," said the boy, rolling his eyes good-naturedly, "and I'll figure out what lies the two of you have been telling her and try to undo the damage. Come on-" That was directed to Luna, as he grabbed hold of her trunk for her. "-we'll find you a seat." She noticed then that there was another boy with him, smaller, and skinnier, and paler, with shockingly blonde hair. She smiled at him, and his lips twitched in response.

"Just a moment," said Luna, turning back to the twins. "It's okay, Fred, George. I know there's no such thing as a Wibbledom house at Hogwarts—I just wanted to play a trick on you, too." They gaped at her. "It's all in good fun, isn't it?" The pale boy laughed.

"All in good fun," he repeated.

"Of course," she answered as they both followed the tall boy onto the train. "I'm from Ottery St. Catchpole." He blinked in surprise, giving her a sideways glance, but then seemed to decide something.

"My family are from Wiltshire," he replied, "although that was a rather odd way to begin a conversation." His tone held no judgement as he called it odd, though, and Luna decided tentatively that she liked him.

"What's the usual way?" she asked as they filed into a compartment where the other boy had put away her trunk already.

"Normally people start by giving their name," said the pale boy, his barely-there smile growing a little wider. He stuck out his right hand. "I'm Draco Malfoy." Luna twisted her left arm sideways and shook.

"My dad says it's bad luck to shake with your right hand," she explains, "at least the first time you meet someone. I'm Luna Lovegood." She turned to the older boy, who'd been watching with a rather amused expression on his face. "Apparently I'm supposed to tell you my name first, so I'm Luna Lovegood." She put out her left hand. The boy chuckled and took it with his own left hand.

"I heard," he told her. "Cedric Diggory."

"There you are! I've been looking all over the train for you—oh!" Someone new had entered the compartment while they'd been introducing themselves—it was a nervous-looking boy clutching a toad tightly.

"I'm Luna Lovegood," she said, holding out her left hand again. The boy shook it briefly, and then went back to holding onto his toad with both hands.

"Neville Longbottom," said the boy, "and this is Trevor." He gestured with his toad; Luna smiled at the animal, and then bent down so that she was eye-level with it. She squinted into its eyes for a long moment, and then broke into a smile.

"I like him."

"Er, I'm glad," said Neville, confused, but honestly meaning it.

"Draco," said Luna, flopping down onto the seat next to him—he looked a little startled, but didn't comment, "I don't know how I feel about going around announcing my name all of the time. Are you sure that's how people normally do it?"

"I'm rather sure, yes," he said with a shrug, "although you're quite free to do whatever you like. People don't always say their name first, it's just what usually happens." She nodded, looking much happier. "Sit down, Neville." Neville obeyed, sitting down across from Draco and Luna. Cedric made to leave.

"I'll be in the Prefects compartment," he told them with a grin, "if you need me." Draco nodded.

"That was a rather Slytherin move there, with the Weasley twins," Draco told Luna when he'd gone. Neville looked confused. "She pretended to be upset because she wouldn't make a proper member of Hogwarts's Wibbledom house since she couldn't put away her own trunk."

"There isn't a Wibbledom house," said Neville blankly.

"Exactly," said Draco. "They told her that there was, and she was going to manipulate them into putting away her trunk for her by pretending to be upset. _Very _Slytherin."

"Are you a Slytherin, then?" asked Luna, and Neville winced as though she'd hit some sort of sore point for one of the boys, but Draco was just puffing up his chest proudly, a smile on his face.

"No," he told her, "I'm a Hufflepuff."

"It was rather smart of you, though, how you figured out what I was doing with Fred and George," said Luna, "so why aren't you in Ravenclaw?" Neville groaned, and Draco shot him a mild glare before turning back to the first-year girl.

"Hufflepuff," he began with the tone of someone who had something _very _important to say, "embodies the qualities of all of the Hogwarts houses." And Draco was off, giving Luna a speech about how Helga Hufflepuff took on Salazar Slytherin's students when he left the castle, and how she'd taken any student the others refused, and managed to bring out the best in them. When he'd finished, he looked very satisfied and sort of smug.

"That sounds very nice," said Luna, honestly, "but I still think that I'm going to be a Ravenclaw." Draco looked rather put out, and spent the better part of the journey on the Hogwarts Express pouting.

Luna noticed that he still clapped for her rather enthusiastically when the Sorting Hat granted her house request.

* * *

><p>"Why do Slytherin and Hufflepuff have points already?"<p>

"Slytherin as a _hundred_! And we have _seventy-five_!"

Draco bit the inside of his cheek lightly, rather nervous to speak up to answer the astonished gossip going up and down the Hufflepuff table—and every other table, too. It wasn't that he regretted what he'd done, exactly, but it now seemed... awkward, especially given the fact that he'd never really gotten a chance to warn any of his housemates or friends about it. The time just hadn't seemed right—it would've sounded like he was bragging, when really, he'd only done it to be a good Hufflepuff.

"You didn't tell them what you did, Mr. Malfoy?" Draco jumped. It was breakfast the first day of classes, and Draco had been expecting the cheerful tones of his head of house, come to give them their timetables, not the silky-smooth drawl of Professor Snape.

"_You_ did that?" asked Cedric, eyes wide.

"Er, yes," said Draco, and all eyes turned to him, a hush falling over the portion of the table which could hear them. "I... well, after the feast, I told Professor Dumbledore that I didn't think it was very fair that he changed it so that Slytherin couldn't have the house cup at the last second like that. I asked him to take back the points he'd given me, not because it would've given back the house cup to Slytherin, because it belonged to Gryffindor anyway, at that point, but just... on principle. He said that he thought I was right, and he promised to give Slytherin one-hundred points to start off the year with a lead, to make it fair, and he gave us seventy-five."

Absolute silence followed this. Draco slid down a little ways on the bench, trying to make himself smaller.

"Draco," breathed Cedric, and Draco couldn't bring himself to look at his friend, instead staring resolutely down at the table. "That's... that's fantastic!" The second-year stared at him.

"What?"

"Well, when you think about it," mused Cedric, "you've gotten Hufflepuff eighty-two points, haven't you?" Again, silence, and then the Hufflepuffs around Draco went mad, clapping him on the back, ruffling his hair, and _hugging_ him. Draco grinned, enjoying the revelry, until Snape's voice in his ear ruined the moment.

"_You will see me after class_."

* * *

><p>Potions was his last class on that first day, a class he still had with the Ravenclaws; Draco was now paired with Justin automatically, and although Draco was trying his best to draw out completing their potion as long as possible, the two Hufflepuffs were simply too competent to keep that up for long, and still managed to be the second pair finished. Justin got to leave, then, but Draco had to wait for the rest of the class to leave so that he could talk to Snape. He had nothing to occupy him, either, except for worries about what Snape could want. He couldn't remember doing anything wrong, but maybe it was something to do with his parents instead of school?<p>

Soon—though not nearly soon enough for Draco's liking—the rest of the students had left, none of them thinking it odd anymore that Draco was staying after class to speak to the Slytherin head of house. Just as he always did, Draco went to stand in front of Snape's desk and waited to be acknowledged.

"Mr. Malfoy," said Snape, the expression on his face apparently undecided between irritation and amusement, which was not an unfamiliar look to Draco, "what I am about to tell you even your parents do not know, and you mustn't tell them. Do you understand?"

Draco was surprised—scratch that, he was shocked. Never before had Snape told him any secrets of this nature; he'd implied certain things involving the mystery of the Philosopher's Stone the year before, but he'd never said anything that could be construed in some way as being personal to either one of them. He nodded.

"Miss Pansy Parkinson wreaked havoc on the Slytherin common room last night because you were speaking to that Ravenclaw first-year girl," said Snape bluntly, and Draco smirked. "However, the Zabinis are making overtures to the Parkinsons for a marriage agreement, a more formalized situation than you currently have. Miss Parkinson's parents will undoubtedly take her thoughts into account, and if she is angry with you, she will say yes."

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Draco, still shell-shocked.

"I do not want to be summoned by house-elves in the middle of the night to be told that I need to fix certain magical elements of my house's common room again," said Snape, tone dark, "especially not because of _you_.

"That is all I had to say to you. Get out."

* * *

><p>Cedric had seen Draco pout, and he'd been on the receiving end of many of his friend's less than serious glares, and he'd also seen him outright distressed, but he had never before seen Draco so legitimately angry.<p>

"Pansy cannot possibly say yes to Blaise Zabini over _me_," he was saying. Cedric was sitting on one of the couches near the fireplace, and rather than sitting in his own usual armchair, Draco was pacing back and forth. "Blaise isn't as handsome as I am, or as rich, and so _obviously_ he wouldn't be as good a husband!" The now fifth-year boy had stopped paying attention almost three or four minutes into Draco's diatribe, but _that_ caught his attention.

"_Husband_?" Cedric said, looking—and feeling—rather alarmed.

"Of course," said Draco. "Haven't you been listening? The Parkinsons talked to my parents a long time ago, and it was rather tentatively decided that we're to be married."

"Married?" repeated Cedric, and then shook his head. "Draco, you're way too young to be thinking about marriage—_I'm_ way too young for that." Now Draco looked alarmed, and a little incredulous.

"Of course I'm not 'too young,'" he said. "This has been decided for _ages_."

"But you're _twelve_."

"And I'm very glad that my parents thought to work out the issue of marriage before all of the suitable girls were taken," he said, tone dismissive, "but that's in danger now. Because of Blaise Zabini. Please tell me you were listening."

"I heard, don't worry," Cedric told him, only a half-lie, "but I still think you're overreacting."

"I am not!" cried Draco, now beginning to gesture with his hands angrily, something Cedric had never, ever seen his normally composed friend do. "Last year, I tried becoming friends with her again, but that blew up in my face, and she didn't reply to a single one of my letters last summer, and _now_ this!"

"Maybe you should try being friends again," suggested Cedric.

"That's not enough," groaned Draco. "This is serious, I could lose my _betrothed_."

As Draco continued to rant, Cedric frowned to himself. The Malfoys had an impressive house—more than just "impressive," really—and an insane amount of money, but he really wasn't envious of all of that, not when it came with a lifestyle that had Draco Malfoy worried about _marriage_ at the age of twelve.

Cedric's letter the next day to his parents was uncharacteristically cheerful, even for him, as he silently heaped gratitude onto his parents for being so thoroughly middle-class.

* * *

><p>The second-year Hufflepuffs had Transfigurations with the Gryffindors, and this presented exactly the opportunity Draco had been looking for. Knowing that Hermione Granger dragged Potter and Weasley around, forcing them to class early (and a good thing, too, because Professor McGonagall was incredibly, horrifyingly intimidating when someone showed up late to her class, or slipping through the door and into their seat just before class officially began, as Potter and Weasley were wont to do when left to themselves), Draco got there just after they did. They occupied the front frow seats, and Draco interrupted their quiet, pleasant small-talk about their summers and their classes by walking around to the front of the desks and slamming his books down in front of Potter unceremoniously, levelling his best glare at the startled boy.<p>

"Er, hi, Malfoy," said Potter, pushing his glasses higher on his nose. "Good summer?"

"I know for a fact that you were getting into some sort of trouble _before school even started_," said Draco, "and I want to make sure that you realize that I will have absolutely no part in any of it this time, no matter how pathetic Neville looks showing up at my common room in the middle of the night!" He was almost yelling, shrieking, by the end of this, but despite his emotional turbulence, he took note of Potter's confusion, and Granger and Weasley's matching looks.

"Just so you know, I'm _not_ in any trouble right now," said Potter defensively, "and I have no idea what you could be talking about."

"I know where you live," blurted Draco abruptly, and Potter blinked in alarm, "and I know because my house-elf knows, and he _went to see you_." Here, Potter's expression turned triumphant, as though he had just figured out a difficult problem.

"Dobby is your house-elf?"

"Yes."

"And he told you that he told me about-"

"_No!_" cried Draco, just as he had to Dobby. "I ordered him _not_ to tell me anything about it _ever_. I don't want to know what he told you and I don't want to know anything about a stupid diary and I don't want to—oh no." Draco tapered off into a groan as he realized that he had given Potter some new information.

"What was that about a diary, Malfoy?" asked Potter, leaning forward eagerly.

"I don't know any more than that it exists, and Dobby thinks it's important, and I will not ever know more than that because _you are not going to involve me in this_! I don't want to know what dangerous beasts are in this castle _where children go to school_, children including _me_, and I do not want to sneak around in the middle of the night and have to whip my wand out because one of you was an idiot and took a bump to the head! _I do not want to know_, Potter. Now, I wanted to tell you just one thing: _leave. me. out. of. it._"

With that, Draco collected his books, and stormed off to a desk on the other side of the room, feeling a flutter of pride somewhere beneath the indignation he was feeling that he'd managed to make his robes billow just a little like Professor Snape.

"I trust that there will be no more theatrics once class actually begins, Mr. Malfoy?" said Professor McGonagall, and Draco jumped, not having realised that she was there. Her voice was coloured by amusement, but her eyes were still staring down at him over her glasses a little sternly.

"Of course not," he said, and then added "ma'am." She gave him a benevolent smile of approval, and when she turned her back to him, Draco sought out Potter's gaze—the boy was already looking at him—and glared. Very deliberately, he mouthed "_NEVER AGAIN_." For one of the first times Draco could remember, Potter looked sheepish, and he made sure to turn away before allowing himself a celebratory smirk.


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note: **I am so sorry for not updating this in forever! I did have 99% of the story written, but then my computer crashed. I didn't start rewriting it until now because I got very busy with schoolwork, but now that it's summertime, I should be updating more!

Please review!

* * *

><p>True to his word, Potter-and the other two-thirds of the Golden Trio-stayed away from Draco in the following weeks, giving him only an awkward smile or a brief "hello" when they happened to be near each other. This, of course, suited Draco very well, as he had more than enough to occupy him.<p>

First and foremost was the matter of Pansy. She still wasn't speaking to him, turning her nose up at him, giving a haughty "_humph!_", and walking in the other direction when he approached. Draco also wanted very desperately to be angry with Blaise Zabini for trying to steal Pansy away from him, but couldn't bring himself to it. Blaise was nice enough, and Pansy was quite a catch, so he could understand the other boy's wish to steal her away. Still, this only made Draco all the more frustrated, feeling as though he were becoming _too_ much of a forgiving, docile Hufflepuff.

Then Draco had to worry about Tonks. She'd gone into some undercover operation with another Auror, a man named Kingsley, and although she'd warned him well in advance, it was disconcerting not to receive a cheerful letter once or twice a week with his morning toast and bacon.

Finally, between Quidditch and that new, _rubbish_ Defence professor, Draco was already starting to worry that he wouldn't be ready for his OWLs in fifth year. Cedric had only made it worse when Draco mentioned it, laughing and telling him that he should partner with Granger, because she was probably thinking the same thing.

As September faded into October, Draco's frustrations festered and grew, until, by the time Halloween came, the young Hufflepuff was fit to burst.

"Cheer up, mate," Cedric told him the morning of the feast. "It can't be that bad—besides, tonight's going to be great. Hagrid's pumpkins are so big this year that you could fit in half of the Quidditch team broom shed, and you know that means there's going to be _tons_ of pie."

"You'll excuse me if Halloween isn't something I'm excited about," Draco not-quite-snapped, "but given what happened last year, I think my distress is justified."

"That was a one-off, Draco," Cedric tried to reassure him. "Nothing like that had happened before while I've been here. Besides, after it happened once, I'm sure the professors wouldn't let it happen again."

"You say that, but the professor in charge of _defence_ is a blithering idiot," Draco murmured darkly, and Cedric's lips twitched. His opinion of Professor Lockhart wasn't very high, either.

"You shouldn't be disrespectful towards professors," he reproached Draco, but it was done in the same tired, nonchalant fashion as his rebukes for swearing, and so the younger boy only rolled his eyes. "Seriously, Draco. Everything's going to be fine. We're going to go to the feast, eat until we all gain twenty tonnes, laugh at the dancing skeletons Dumbledore's getting, and then we're going to come right back here and go to bed so we can practise early on the pitch tomorrow. It'll be _fine_." Draco continued to look at Cedric doubtfully until his older friend finally sighed and changed the subject.

In the end, Draco's doubts, it seemed, were entirely justified.

* * *

><p>Entering the Great Hall, Draco was tense, on high alert. Seated firmly between Cedric and Susan Bones, he tried to relax and laugh at the skeletons who were floating above the Head Table—at that moment doing a dance that Justin informed him was a Muggle one called the Macarena—but he simply <em>couldn't<em>, and it was all Harry Potter's fault, as usual.

"Where have they gone to _now_?" he groaned, and his friends looked at him oddly.

"Where have who gone?" asked Cedric, happily shovelling pumpkin pie into his mouth. As it was his favourite dessert, he had elected to start there, grateful that the sweets had appeared on the table at the same moment as the rest of the food.

"The Gryffindor Golden Trio," huffed Draco. "The _last_ Halloween they disappeared, it was because the three of them were battling a bloody mountain troll."

"Draco-" But he missed the rest of Cedric's reply as he cried out, feeling a chill wash over him as the Fat Friar, the ghost of Hufflepuff house, passed through him.

"Oh, I'm quite sorry, my boy!" said the Friar, turning just above their table to look at him. "How clumsy of me."

"Quite alright, Friar," Draco said through gritted teeth, trying his best to be polite.

"Say, I couldn't help but overhear," the ghost began, "and I heard a rumour that Harry Potter and his friends were going to Sir Nicholas' deathday celebration! I suppose I'll see in a moment, though, as I'm headed there now. Shall I give them your regards?"

"Give them to Sir Nicholas only, if you would," instructed Draco after a moment's consideration. "I'm boycotting Harry Potter and all of the trouble that comes with him." The ghost looked moderately puzzled at that, but also highly amused, and beside him, Cedric chuckled. With a nod and a promise to wish Nearly Headless Nick a happy deathday, the Fat Friar was gone, and Draco finally relaxed enough to laugh when Susan shrieked as a charmed bat-shaped lantern got caught in her hair.

The rest of the feast passed calmly, leaving Draco in a much better mood than before. As it was nearing midnight, he waved to Neville and Luna at the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables, respectively, as he and the majority of the Hufflepuffs prepared to follow the Slytherins, who had left first, out of the Great Hall.

That was when Draco and the rest heard the shouting—it sounded suspiciously like Nott's voice, and he knew as they came into view exactly what he was yelling about.

"'Enemies of the Heir, beware!'" repeated the Slytherin boy, reading what was written on the wall in what looked to be—Draco blanched—_blood_. Next to the words "THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE." hung Filch's cat, Mrs Norris, who looked stiff and cold and very much _dead_. Draco felt his stomach turn. "You Mudbloods are going to die!" Again, he felt an unpleasant lurch at the glee in Theodore Nott's voice, and for a moment, Draco could hardly believe that this was the same boy who, at one time, had visited Malfoy Manor to play on children's' broomsticks with him-

"What's going on here? What's going on?" It was Filch, and the man shouldered his way through the crowd, only to stop short as he saw his cat dangling from the torch bracket. "My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs Norris?" And when he turned his head, Draco finally noticed the Golden Trio standing there gaping alternately at Filch and at Mrs Norris, and he felt his stomach drop. _Why_ had he let his guard down? Of course they were up to something!

Filch was screaming at Potter, screaming that he was going to kill the boy, not that Draco could really blame him, and then he felt himself ever-so-slightly calm—_not_ that everything was alright, mind you, because it most certainly _was not—_because then Dumbledore was there, the crowd parting to let him through seemingly instinctively.

As he led away the Gryffindors—Filch and Lockhart, who looked rather unduly and inappropriately _excited_, both following almost uselessly behind them—they passed right by Draco. Entirely by accident, his own wide, startled eyes met those of Harry Potter, and Draco quickly looked away, his face burning.

And Potter had had the gall to say that he wasn't in any trouble.

* * *

><p>Back in the Hufflepuff common room, Draco found himself stressed and admittedly frightened for the second Halloween in a row. Just as before, Cedric took it upon himself to try to calm his younger friend down. Draco had sequestered himself in one corner of the room, farthest from the fireplace and, by extension, all of the other Hufflepuffs, and Cedric had followed after only a few moments.<p>

"And _you_ thought everything would be fine," Draco huffed quietly, giving Cedric and offended glare. Cedric sighed and shrugged as he sat down next to Draco.

"I was wrong," he said. "Sorry." Draco continued to glare until finally he simply rolled his eyes.

"Well, it wasn't _your_ fault," said Draco, "it was Potter's." Cedric's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Harry Potter? Draco, I know you think every bad thing that happens here is because of the three of them, but do you really think that _Harry Potter_ would kill Filch's cat?"

At that, a seventh-year girl sitting only a short distance away, trying to read—Cedric's counterpart Prefect, Draco remembered distantly—piped up. "I heard that the cat was just petrified, so the mandrakes Professor Sprout is growing will revive her."

"Oh, that's _wonderful_," said Draco, voice dripping with sarcasm. "She's _only _petrified! That's still very, very powerful Dark Magic!"

"See, Draco? If it's that powerful, how could second-years be capable of it?" asked Cedric hopefully, but his friend just glared.

"How could _first-years_ have been capable of getting past the professors' traps on the way to the Philosopher's Stone?" he retorted, and Cedric closed his eyes briefly, bracing himself, and ran a hand through his hair.

"Look, Draco. Harry Potter is just _not_ the type to petrify a cat, we both know that." Cedric frowned as he tried to ignore Draco's muttered "maybe _you_ know that." "Besides, the writing on the wall about the Heir—I think that means the Heir of Slytherin." As soon as Cedric said that, Draco's brow furrowed and he sat up a bit straighter.

"Yes, yes, you're right!" he said, peering at Cedric, eyes wide. "I remember my father mentioning the Heir of Slytherin once... Yes, when he told me about the Chamber of Secrets!" This had caught the attention of the Hufflepuffs near them, and they turned their attention fully to Draco, waiting for him to continue. "Well, my father told me that Slytherin built a secret chamber within the school before he left, a place containing a monster that only Slytherin could control—or one of his descendants. He said that only someone related to Slytherin could even find and open it, and that when they did, all of the Muggle-borns in Hogwarts would..." Draco trailed off, his eyes meeting Justin's without his consent. He swallowed thickly.

"Theodore Nott said that we would die," said Justin, sounding disgusted and unimpressed more than frightened. One corner of Draco's lips twitched upward in an almost-smile despite himself at that before he registered what his friend had said.

"Er, well, yes. The monster was kept there for that reason," Draco admitted meekly. There was a long moment of heavy, uncomfortable silence, and then Susan spoke up.

"But that was just a story, wasn't it, Draco?" she asked. "This is just somebody's Halloween prank, right? From someone who'd heard about the Chamber." A murmur of agreement passed through the crowd before Draco looked over his house-mates and then slowly, hesitantly shook his head.

"My father told me that fifty years ago, even before he was at Hogwarts, someone opened the Chamber, and that..." Draco paused—he could remember the night his father had told him the story. He had been ten years old, and he was starting to get impatient about going to Hogwarts. He couldn't wait to go away and become a Slytherin and play Quidditch and have his own wand at last, and that night after dinner he had begged his father for new stories about Hogwarts-

"Get on with it! What happened, Draco?" called one of the older Hufflepuffs from near the back of the room.

"A monster was let loose," Draco said, suddenly feeling strangely detached from his body, hearing the words coming out of his mouth without really commanding himself to say them, "and the school was almost closed after... a girl, a Muggle-born... she _died_."

* * *

><p>For a few days, the school could talk of little else but the attack on Mrs Norris. Filch kept it fresh in everyone's minds by pacing the spot where she had been attacked, as though the attacker might come back. He'd been seen scrubbing the message on the wall with Mrs Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover, but to no effect; the words still gleamed as brightly as ever on the stone. When Filch wasn't guarding the scene of the crime, he was skulking red-eyed through the corridors, lunging out at unsuspecting students and trying to put them in detention for things like "breathing loudly" and "looking happy."<p>

Draco had sent a letter to his father before going to bed on Halloween night, asking for more details about the last time the Chamber had been opened, though he'd not received any reply. It had been passed around the school quickly enough that Draco knew more than the other students about the Chamber, and some had taken to following him around, asking if he knew who the Heir of Slytherin could be. Draco, in turn, began to hide in the more obscure sections of the library.

He was sitting in the Magical Forestry section, trying to finish his four feet on "The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards" for History of Magic the following day when a soft, slightly off-key humming sounded, signalling the presence of another student. Draco tensed, preparing to shuffle behind another bookcase, before relaxing as Luna came into sight.

"Oh, hello, Draco," she said, cocking her head to the side and giving him a small smile. "Are you friends with Neville because you're interested in plants, too, then?" Draco blinked in surprise, wondering if he was ever going to become accustomed to Luna's odd fashion of beginning conversations, and then shook his head.

"No, I'm simply trying to get away from everyone. They've somehow gotten it into their heads that _I _know who the Heir of Slytherin is," huffed Draco, and Luna nodded sagely.

"I'm sure they'll stop asking you soon," she said rather decisively. "Most people think that Harry Potter is the Heir of Slytherin, and that he defeated Voldemort when he was a baby because he's the true Heir and Voldemort wasn't. Are you alright, Draco?" He was suddenly aware that he had become very red, and was close to sputtering. Draco cleared his throat several times before replying.

"Don't say his name, Luna. It's... well, it just isn't done. And Potter... I have no idea how he survived the Killing Curse, but that's why he's so miraculous, isn't he? But he couldn't be the Heir of Slytherin. He's not even a Pureblood!"

"No, I don't think he's related to Salazar at all, either," agreed Luna, beginning to rock back and forth absently. "But his life is rather exciting, I've heard, so it makes sense that people might think that. _Do_ you know who the Heir of Slytherin is?"

"No," answered Draco rather curtly, but Luna wasn't offended. She gave him a wan smile, and then twirled around once.

"Oh!" she said, coming to an abrupt halt in her pirouette. "Your friend Pansy told me that I shouldn't ever speak to you again. Should I listen to her?"

"I... is that all she said?"

"Yes. She seemed angry with me, though I couldn't figure out why. Maybe the jasper-willow creepers got into her brain when she went through the entrance to Platform 9 and ¾." Draco sighed, biting the inside of his cheek. "Why would she say that, otherwise?"

"She and I are supposed to be married," said Draco, and suddenly Luna broke out into a wide grin.

"That's marvellous! I love weddings. When is yours going to be?"

"It won't be at all if I don't do something," sighed Draco. "She's angry with me, and I don't know why, but if I don't figure it out and _fix it_ then she's going to marry Blaise Zabini instead of me."

"Oh, well, that's not very good, is it?" said Luna. "But I'm a girl!"

"Er, yes, you are," said Draco warily, wondering where Luna meant to go with this train of thought.

"That means that I'm supposed to be able to talk to _other_ girls, isn't it? So I can help you fix your engagement!" she declared happily, and Draco slowly broke out into a reluctant smile.

"That's better than all of the ideas I've had so far," he admitted, and Luna grinned back at him.

"Then Operation: Dransy is in effect!"

* * *

><p>Draco felt far better after Luna's decision to help him win back Pansy—although he had refused to call it Operation: Dransy, with that utterly ridiculous combination of their two first names—and he practically had a spring in his step by the end of the following week. Things <em>finally<em> seemed to be going his way—Tonks had finally written to say that she and Kingsley were doing well, and had caught an entire ring of smugglers; the Hufflepuff Quidditch team had won its first four consecutive games; Lockhart was still rubbish, but he had finally heard about the Gryffindors having to endure live pixies running amok in class, and was thankful that all Lockhart had taken to doing was reading passages from his books and reenacting the most exciting portions. Draco was also lucky enough not to have been chosen to help Lockhart in these reenactments.

Working with Neville in Herbology was almost soothing by that time, becoming second nature to the two of them. They made pleasant small-talk as they worked—and another thing Draco had to be grateful for was that they were no longer working with the Mandrakes, Professor Sprout having deemed it too dangerous for the younger students now that the plants were more fully grown. Instead, the second-years were working on tending to the dystalia plants, which were also necessary to the potion that Professor Snape would eventually brew to revive Mrs Norris. These plants were much safer, although their vine-like branches often developed an attitude if they were displeased with their caretakers, sometimes slapping the students. Because Neville was so excellent with the plants—even going to far as too coo softly at them, as if they were very small children and he was the very proud father—Draco got to snicker at the other pairs as they were harassed by their charges.

His snickering stopped abruptly when he noticed the Golden Trio looking at him from across the Greenhouse quite thoughtfully, frowning and whispering to each other, eyes always returning to him. Draco resolutely glared at them, and then looked anywhere else.

Whatever they wanted from him, he was _not_ going to get involved this time.

* * *

><p>The gardens at Malfoy Manor were widely acknowledged as some of the most beautiful, and this meant that the annual garden party—held in the late fall, and made possible by the Manor's extensive weather charms—was the talk of Wizarding high society for weeks before and after the event. As it was, those who were rich and those who were purest of blood made their way through the intricate hedge mazes and garden paths of the gardens, talking and laughing and drinking.<p>

Most of the attendees were parents with children at Hogwarts, and so, quite naturally, the topic of "that awful attack on Halloween" and "those rumours about the Heir" came up many times, often with a laugh.

"If only it were true," sighed Mrs Goyle. "My Gregory having to go to school with those vile Mudbloods has always weighed heavily upon me."

"I did think about sending Draco to Durmstrang because of it," agreed Lucius Malfoy, "but Narcissa simply couldn't bear the idea of Draco going so far from home."

"But this attack," said Narcissa, "makes me wonder if it truly would have been safer sending him to Durmstrang. Just think of it—they say the cat was petrified, of all things, and that is very dark magic!" A deep, bawdy laugh from Mrs Goyle was met by the strangely tight, secretive smile of Lucius. He raised an eyebrow at his wife as he replied.

"Draco is of pure blood, Narcissa, so what has he to fear from the Heir of Slytherin?" said Lucius. "A reopening of the Chamber could only help our son."

Conversation continued, and unbeknownst to the Master and Mistress of the Malfoy Estate, behind the hedge, Dobby had heard every word.


	13. Chapter 13

The following Saturday morning, the school collectively trudged down towards the Quidditch pitch to watch the Gryffindor-Slytherin match, the first of the season for Gryffindor, and the second for Slytherin. Draco himself was half-dragged from bed by an excited Cedric, who was quite looking forward to seeing what new strategies Oliver Wood had come up with over the summer.

When they got there and saw the two House teams walk onto the pitch, however, the two Hufflepuffs—along with the rest of the watching school—let out collective gasps, followed closely by indignant shouts from every direction of the stands. The Slytherin team members were all holding brand new Nimbus 2001 broomsticks, rather than the Nimbus 2000s that Draco's father had sent the previous year.

Once the shouting had died down, Cedric turned to Draco and asked, "Do you have any idea who would've gotten those for the team?"

"I know _exactly_ who got them," ground out Draco through gritted teeth. Now circling high above the centre of the field was the new Slytherin Seeker, Theodore Nott. Nott's parents were the only ones with a child on the team—apparently, anyway, and Merlin, did Draco have something to say about that because it wasn't as if Teddy had ever even been very _good—_who would have been able to afford the new brooms.

"Hey, don't get your wand in a knot," Cedric told him a moment later, noticing the angry grimace Draco was sporting. "I know I said that _we_ would have to play fair, but not everybody feels the same way, and-"

"That's not why I'm angry, Cedric," said Draco, refusing to look at his friend; instead, he watched as the Weasley twins began to circle around Harry Potter as a particularly persistent bludger attempted to take off the head of the Boy-Who-Lived. "I just..." He stopped, frowning as the Weasley twins gestured to the Gryffindor captain to call a time-out. Wood acquiesced easily enough, probably because they were behind sixty to naught.

"Yeah?" prompted Cedric, now more interested in making his friend feel better than in the rather spectacularly one-sided game of Quidditch now paused in front of them.

"It's like Teddy's trying to take everything I would've had if..."

"If you hadn't been in Hufflepuff," finished Cedric, and Draco nodded. "I thought you were finally happy here?" The older boy's voice was a bit sad, and Draco immediately began to feel guilty, knowing that it was one of Cedric's main goals to make Draco feel happy and accepted and at home in Hufflepuff.

"It isn't—well. I _am_ a Hufflepuff, a real one. I know that, and I'm... I've grown accustomed to it," said Draco rather clumsily, but Cedric understood that Draco was trying to say that he truly did like his House placement, and he nodded. "It's just that the things that I thought would be simple—things that I would never have thought to doubt before—it's just that nothing is the _same_..."

"You think it would all be easier for you if you had been in Slytherin," finished Cedric again, and Draco sighed and slumped down in his seat slightly. On the pitch, the time-out had finished, and both teams were clambering back onto their brooms. "To be honest, I think things probably would be _easier_ for you if you'd been in Slytherin. But what makes a person really exceptional is having to work for what you have—it's like being brave." Draco stared at Cedric, brow furrowed. He'd been quite confused by Cedric's definition of "bravery" that Halloween with the troll, and this made no more sense to him.

He was saved from having to reply as a collective shout ran through the stands, and when Draco looked up, Harry Potter was lurching towards the ground, legs locked to his broom, one hand outstretched and obviously containing the Snitch, and the other hugged uselessly to his chest. Right behind him followed a bludger—Draco frowned, knowing that they weren't supposed to follow one person like that—and then he was on the ground, and the Weasley twins were wrestling the rogue ball to the ground as it struggled, even though the other balls had fallen to the ground as the game was ended and the enchantments called off. Tuning in to the last of Lee Jordan's commentary on the game, Draco found that Potter's arm had been broken by the bludger before he'd managed to catch the Snitch.

"Hope it's not going to go after me that way," murmured Cedric, giving Draco a lopsided smile. It was both an attempt to lighten the mood and an acknowledgement that Draco wasn't going to answer Cedric's final comment. Draco smiled back—really, it sometimes felt like Cedric was the only one who truly understood him. What would he do without the other boy?

* * *

><p>Draco wasn't on the pitch to see the debacle Lockhart made of Potter's broken arm, but Neville told him the following morning that he'd spelled the boy's bones completely out of his arm.<p>

"Harry had to spend the whole night in the Hospital Wing, waiting for the Skele-Grow to grow them all back," Neville said; he'd taken to sitting with Draco for breakfast at the Hufflepuff table, returning to the rest of the Gryffindors for lunch and dinner later. Draco grimaced, his own arm tingling in sympathetic pain. "It was a really spectacular catch, though, wasn't it?" Draco nodded, because even he had to admit that being chased by a rogue bludger out to kill you with only your legs to keep you on your broomstick was a fantastic way to get the Snitch—though Draco was all the more glad that he was a Chaser rather than a Seeker.

"I'm, er, glad you think so." Draco and Neville's heads both shot up to see the Boy-Who-Lived himself standing beside their table, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, his face a vibrant shade of red that would almost rival the Weasleys' hair.

"Potter," Draco greeted the boy coolly, eyes narrowed. "When you come to hunt me down, it usually means bad things for me." Potter looked guilty, then, and glanced away for a moment. "The answer is _no_."

"But I haven't even asked yet!" exclaimed the Gryffindor, frowning, looking indignant. "Look, it's not anything really tough—it's not even dangerous—"

"Coming from the boy who _willingly_ charged into the death traps of the third-floor corridor last year, I'm not sure assessments of danger are trustworthy," sniffed Draco haughtily, and Potter blinked before grimacing.

"I saw your house elf again," he said, switching tactics, and it was Draco's turn to be surprised at that.

"Dobby? When did you see him?"

"He said last night that talking to you convinced him to at least let me get on the train to Hogwarts—and thanks for that, by the way, that would've been _really_ awkward—and it was him who set the bludger on me," Harry said in a rush. Draco frowned and pushed his plate away, suddenly finding that he was no longer hungry. Because Dobby was his family's house elf, and Draco didn't exactly want Harry Potter writing to his parents, he would have to deal with the situation.

"I'll tell him to punish himself later, if that will make you happy enough to leave me alone," Draco sighed. Both Potter and Neville looked alarmed at that.

"No!" Potter all but shouted, but then flushed even redder than before, and cleared his throat. "I mean, you really don't need to. He feels bad enough about it."

"Then why would he do it in the first place?" asked Draco in exasperation before he could stop himself. Potter gave a triumphant little smirk—though the expression was tempered by some shadow of lingering unhappiness. Draco groaned.

"Well, since you asked... do you think you could meet me in the library later this evening to talk about it?" asked Potter, voice disgustingly pleasant. "If only to get this thing with Dobby straightened out, right?"

"Oh, of course," ground out Draco, voice laden with sarcasm.

"Great! Thanks a lot, Malfoy. See you in Potions, Neville." Potter immediately turned back to his House table where his two best friends were watching him, and gave them a thumbs-up. Draco groaned and allowed his head to fall and land on the table with a soft _thud_.

"Er, Draco? Does this mean that you're getting involved?"

"It most certainly does _not_."

* * *

><p>Potter arrived first that evening, and he was with Granger and Weasley, bent over a copy of <em>Hogwarts, A History<em>. They were surrounded by a gaggle of other students standing only a short ways away, even in such a secluded corner; after the first mention of the Chamber of Secrets, all of the students were keen to get their hands on the only text known to mention it. Draco, of course, knew of quite a few more that spoke of it, but all of those were in Malfoy Manor, and unsuitable for even the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library, so he refrained from mentioning any of them.

As Draco approached, Potter said something to his two Gryffindor friends and then slipped away from the table; as the book remained with the others, he was not followed as he led Draco towards another corner. Draco smirked as they returned to one of his favourite spots, the Magical Forestry section where he'd run into Luna just the other day.

Taking seats on the floor, hidden by the tall, dusty bookcases, Potter stared at Draco, clearly casting about for a way to begin what was probably going to be an awkward conversation from start to finish. The Hufflepuff finally took pity on him.

"What did Dobby say to you last night? And for Merlin's _sake_, why was he even here?" asked Draco.

"The bludger that tried to kill me at the match was enchanted by him," said Harry, and Draco blinked in surprise. Potter had said as much at breakfast, but Draco hadn't taken him too very seriously, because he had seen, over the years, the Malfoy house elves spell food up three floors from the kitchen to an upstairs dining room as required, and he had seen them perform a myriad of cleaning spells, but he had never, ever heard of a house elf using that sort of magic. "Dobby said that he wasn't trying to kill me, just hurt me enough that I'd want to go home."

"Why would he want that?" asked Draco, frowning. "Why would he care if you're at Hogwarts?" Potter's expression was still vaguely grim, as it had been all day, but now it was accompanied by a faint flush of embarrassment on his cheeks.

"Er, apparently your house elf thinks I'm some sort of hero. He said that after I... well, he said that things got better for house elves, and he's grateful," explained Potter, and Draco frowned even more. He'd also never heard a house elf complain about servitude before—but then, the vague memories he had of Dobby in particular did cast him as a rather... peculiar elf. "That's why he cares that I'm here, anyway, and he wanted me sent home because he thinks I'm in danger here." Draco groaned quietly, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment and taking a bracing breath before turning back to the other boy.

"Of _course_ you are," Draco said wearily. "But it can't be the Chamber—that only puts Muggle-borns in danger, and even though you're not a Pureblood, you are a Half-blood."

"Half-blood?" repeated Potter, head cocked to the side as he considered the clearly new term. "You mean because my mum was Muggle-born?"

"Yes, Half-bloods either have one witch or wizard parent, and one Muggle or Muggle-born parent," explained Draco, and Potter said "ah." Draco continued. "If you're in danger, as Dobby seems to think you are, then what from? This Chamber of Secrets thing is just a rumour." Harry outright grimaced at that, and Draco felt his stomach sink again.

"While I was still in the Hospital Wing last night, Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall brought in Colin Creevey. He'd been petrified, just like Mrs Norris," said Harry grimly, "and I heard Professor Dumbledore admit that it must mean that the Chamber of Secrets is open again."

"Again," repeated Draco slowly, trying to come to terms with what Potter had just said. "I—wait, a _student—_and Dumbledore couldn't heal him, either? Just like Filch's cat?" Potter nodded, and Draco's eyebrows rose of their own accord. "Merlin."

"Even before Colin was petrified—" And as he spoke, Draco was finally able to put a name with the face—Colin Creevey was the irritating boy who followed Potter around with his camera. "—we—Ron, Hermione, and I, that is—we'd decided to ask you about the Chamber."

"I don't think there's anything I could tell you that you wouldn't have already heard by now, Potter," said Draco. "The Chamber was opened fifty years ago, and a girl died. That's all I know." Potter looked disappointed at that, and Draco knew that the Gryffindor must have heard it already through Hogwarts' very healthy grapevine.

"I also asked Dobby about the diary you mentioned, though," said Potter, and Draco scrubbed a hand over his face. Fat lot of good ordering Dobby to keep his mouth shut around Draco was, then. "He obviously figured that you'd told me about it, and he said that he couldn't tell me anything about it, but Dobby did let it slip that it's dangerous, whatever it is, and that it's something that used to belong to your father. Your dad is 'Master Lucius,' isn't he?"

"Yes, Potter," sighed Draco, "he is."

"I just... do you know _anything_ about a diary? Anything at all? I've just got this feeling like it's connected to everything that's going on," said Potter in one rush. "I mean, a dangerous, mysterious diary we know nothing about is in the school, and then the Chamber of Secrets, a dangerous, mysterious _place_ we know hardly anything about gets opened again? It just doesn't seem like it could be an accident."

"But my father wasn't even at Hogwarts yet when the Chamber was opened last time," said Draco. "He only heard the story from other people, most of whom are dead now."

"Right, okay." Potter sighed, pushed his glasses up higher on his nose, and bit his lip. "Look, I was hoping you'd just be able to tell me something I could use to help, but there is another reason I wanted to talk to you." His voice had taken on an edge that just screamed "please," and Draco was already shaking his head. "Don't say no before I even ask! It's not as if you wouldn't be getting anything out of it, and it's not dangerous at all, so at least let me ask."

"Fine," ground out Draco, conceding with ill grace.

"Thank you," said Potter politely. "Now, I heard about your-um-trouble with Pansy Parkinson. It's an arranged marriage thing?"

"Of sorts," said Draco, "though it's causing so much fuss because it _isn't_ yet arranged. Not formally. But what does this have to do with anything at all?"

"Right. Well, I heard that Blaise Zabini-that Slytherin boy-he's trying to... get her?" Draco nodded stiffly. "Right. Okay. Anyway, it just occurred to me that you need to talk to the Slytherins, if only because of fixing this thing with your-um-"

"Betrothed," drawled Draco, and Potter blinked, his face screwing itself up.

"...with Pansy Parkinson, and _we_ need someone to talk to the Slytherins because it's the Heir of Slytherin who'd be able to open the Chamber, isn't it? And Slytherins could-or should, really-know who that is," said Potter, and Draco had to admit that this was an intriguing idea.

"Pansy refuses to speak to me, so I don't have a way of getting her to listen to me-to get her back or to find out who she thinks opened the Chamber," Draco refuted. He decided to leave out the fact that Luna had offered her assistance; the fewer people who knew about their secret plans, the better.

"She might not want to talk to _you_," said Potter slowly, "but she would want to talk to Blaise Zabini."

"What? What's Blaise got to do with this?" asked Draco, and Potter pulled a book out of his school bag. It was heavy, and obviously old, and stained in places, and it was obviously marked Restricted. As he turned to a pre-marked page, Potter caught sight of Draco's concerned look.

"Don't worry, we got Lockhart to sign for it," said Potter, and then he was thrusting the book into Draco's hands.

"Polyjuice Potion? You must be joking," said Draco. "You're mad to even think you could brew it, let alone that pretending to be Slytherins would work."

"Hermione can make it," Potter said with certainty, "and that's why we need you. We know it wouldn't be very convincing if it was just the three of us trying to be Slytherins, but you already know them-you know what they're like, and you could help us."

Draco gave Potter an almost comedic look of disdain. "Even if the potion worked, I couldn't lie to Pansy. She's supposed to be my future wife." Potter gave him an odd, sideways glance in return.

"I suppose you reckon your dad never lies to your mum, then," said Potter, and Draco arched an eyebrow.

"Merlin, no." Potter looked sceptical at that.

"It's just that my uncle Vernon's lied to my aunt _loads_ of times."

"Yes, well, they are _Muggles_," Draco sniffed, and Harry pursed his lips. Draco barrelled on before the other boy had a chance to reply. "This is actually a dangerous potion, Potter, and it's breaking more school rules than I can count."

"Hermione reckons about fifty," admitted Potter sheepishly. "But look, Malfoy, Colin Creevey was petrified. It's not just Filch's cat, anymore—whatever's in the Chamber is going after students now, and we could really use your help. Besides, your family is already involved in this somehow, with the diary, even if we don't really know how." Draco chewed on the inside of his cheek. It wasn't that he doubted that his father could have dark magical artefacts in the Manor, but it wouldn't make sense for his father to send any of them to the school his son attended-especially if it would open an ancient, secret Chamber that had already caused one death...

Ah, said a small voice in the back of Draco's mind, but it was a Muggle-born girl. If Lucius Malfoy knew that Draco would be safe, then would he really hesitate to take measures to get rid of them? He bit down especially hard at the thought, and then levelled a hard gaze at Potter.

"My father wouldn't do that," he said, and Potter blinked several times.

"Maybe he didn't know what the diary was, or that it was that dangerous, or maybe it got to Hogwarts by mistake," said Potter easily, and Draco started to relax, nodding. "But will you help? You don't have to answer right now, because the potion wouldn't even be ready until around Christmas. Just promise me you'll think about it, alright?"

Later, Draco would claim temporary insanity, because he truly did not know why, in that moment, faced with Potter's ridiculous proposition, he promised.

* * *

><p>Draco knew that he had been one of the first to know about Colin Creevey being petrified, but after dinner, when he went back to the Hufflepuff common room for the night, it seemed to be common knowledge. All around him his house-mates sported the same expression of mingled worry, sadness, and sympathy, and Draco felt his stomach give a rebellious lurch. When he took the seat in the corner he customarily used for thinking, or worrying, rather, everyone knew better than to bother him-everyone, that is, except for Cedric, who sprawled on a chair next to him.<p>

They sat in companionable silence for several minutes before Cedric looked over and asked, "Is it Colin Creevey that's got you upset?"

"Partly," admitted Draco, knowing by now that it was useless to try to lie to Cedric or hide things from him. Cedric merely nodded as though he'd expected this. "Cedric... if you had a chance to find out who did it, would you do it? Even though we're all just kids?"

Cedric frowned as he really thought hard about the question. It was obvious that this wasn't just idle curiosity for Draco, and he was determined to answer right. "I think," he finally said slowly, "that if it wasn't _too_ stupidly dangerous, and it wasn't something the professors could do, or would do, then I probably would."

"Why?" Draco's older friend looked at him and smiled.

"Because it could stop other people from getting hurt," answered Cedric, as though this were the simplest concept in the world. Draco frowned hard, trying to understand; as someone who had been raised by Slytherins, sacrificing oneself for others wasn't easy to comprehend. Cedric stood up and ruffled Draco's hair, laughing and ignoring the indignant squawk from the second-year. "I'm sure you'll do the right thing, Draco. Now, I'm off to bed-we've got Quidditch practise early tomorrow, so don't you stay up too late, either." Draco nodded absently, still mulling over Cedric's words as the other boy made his way to his dormitory for the night.

The following morning at breakfast, Draco very patiently stared at Potter until the other boy finally looked up, and when their gazes met, he nodded, slow and deliberately. He was going to do it to be a good Hufflepuff-and if he got something out of it, then so much the better.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Well, I got this update up a lot faster than the last chapter, didn't I? Just like I promised!

Please don't forget to leave a review!


	14. Chapter 14

Draco Malfoy leaned up against a cool stone wall, arms folded over his chest, and tried for the umpteenth time to picture his parents' faces if they found out that their son, the heir to one of the most powerful Pureblood estates in Europe, was in a girls' lavatory with the Boy-Who-Lived, a Weasley, and a Muggle-born. He still couldn't.

"Why is my presence required here?" asked Draco for at least the third time since he'd gotten there an hour before, and again, the Golden Trio gave each other uncomfortable looks. "Whatever it is, I would advise you to tell me post-haste." This startled a laugh from Weasley, and a reluctant, quizzical grin from Potter.

"Who says 'post-haste,' Malfoy?" sniggered Weasley, who hadn't been at all glad to see Draco in their private potions-making lavatory; even after the previous year's heroics, Weasley seemed to dislike him. Draco sneered at him in reply, but said nothing.

"We're going to need some additional ingredients for the potion soon," said Granger, pushing her bushy hair out of her face.

"Such as?"

"Bicorn horn and boomslang skin," she said evenly, but the significant glance she sent Draco told him that she knew _exactly _where they were going to have to find them.

"It's not as if he'll just give them to us if we ask," pointed out Draco, "but you can't be thinking of _stealing_ from Professor Snape." The looks on their faces told him that this was precisely what they had planned on doing. "Let me guess: you want me to help with that, too." Their expressions looked hopeful; Draco squeezed his eyes shut, let his head fall back against the stone, and groaned.

In the end, Draco could understand their logic. After being found in the corridor where Mrs Norris had been found petrified, the Gryffindor Golden Trio could hardly afford to be caught stealing from Snape's stores; Granger also pointed out that as she was the one who had the book checked out in her name, if she were caught stealing boomslang skin and bicorn horn, it would be fairly obvious what she intended to do with it-and that would be connected to Potter and Weasley as well. Above all of this came the fact that Draco's relationship with Professor Snape consisted of more than sneers and distracting, belittling commentary during class, and that was more than could be said for the other three. They all hoped that this meant that, if caught, Snape wouldn't try to have Draco expelled-of course, Draco's father could prevent that, but it would still be a messy business. Draco hoped this most fervently of all as he, cursing himself for ever listening to Cedric in the first place, agreed.

* * *

><p>Draco wasted several days trying to think of some way to avoid having to steal from Professor Snape. He looked through several owl-order catalogues, only to find that he had to be over seventeen to send for ingredients as uncommon and potentially dangerous as boomslang skin and bicon horn; he considered owling his parents, claiming that it was for a school project-which, technically, could be construed as the truth; he even considered trying to back out of helping to make and, in turn, eventually <em>take<em>the Polyjuice Potion altogether-the professors could handle it, couldn't they? The latter idea was discarded not only because the professors hadn't been able to handle the protection of the Philosopher's Stone the previous year, but also because Draco had given his word—though not explicitly—that he would assist the Golden Trio, and the promise of a Malfoy was to be upheld.

The first thing he would need, he decided, was a distraction, and one evening several weeks before the potion would need to be ready—before Pansy and Blaise left for the Christmas holiday—the perfect idea fell straight into Draco's lap. Sitting at the Hufflepuff table, half-listening to Cedric and several of the other Quidditch team members talk about a new strategy for out-manoeuvring the Slytherins' faster broomsticks, he happened to look through the open door of the Great Hall to see Peeves shoot by, followed only moments later by the hunched forms of the Weasley twins.

Oh, yes—_that_ would do quite nicely.

"Excuse me," Draco murmured hastily, uncharacteristically not bothering to figure out whether he'd just interrupted someone, "but I'm... no longer hungry. Goodnight." It was abrupt, and it was a shoddy excuse, but as the twins headed out of sight, Draco didn't care. He managed to confine himself to a brisk walk until he was out of sight of the Great Hall, and then went sprinting after them.

"Weasleys!" he called, running after them, up one flight of stairs, round a bend, and then up another flight of stairs and-straight into a dead-end corridor with neither twin anywhere in sight. Draco let out a huff of breath and turned to go, only to let out an incredibly undignified yelp as he was dragged back by the collar of his robes into an alcove he hadn't before noticed.

The two Weasleys peered down at him, having him backed against the wall, towering over him, and then they looked at each other.

"Alright," said one of the twins slowly. "What—"

"—do you want—"

"—from us?" Draco blinked, trying to get around the incredibly disconcerting way they spoke as if they were one person. He tried to figure out where to look, which twin to address as he made his reply, and settled for alternating between each of them.

"I find myself in need of your... particular assistance," he said, and though the words were haughty, his tone was quiet and meek. The twins exchanged another weighty, significant look, and then returned their attention to him, both sets of eyebrows raised in identical expressions of interest.

"And what sort of assistance—"

"—would _that_ be?"

"I need a distraction tomorrow, during the second hour of classes after breakfast," explained Draco. "It should be in the dungeons, and the bigger, and the louder, the _better_."

"Aren't you a Hufflepuff?"

"Hufflepuffs are supposed to be good, aren't they?"

"So why would you be planning something big—"

"—in the middle of class?"

"I'm a Hufflepuff, not a Ravenclaw or Gryffindor," Draco sniffed indignantly, deciding to take Professor Sprout's "union of the Houses" to mean that he could embody Slytherins in that moment by lying. "It's just that I have a very important exam in Potions tomorrow, and I'm not ready, but I care enough to not want my marks ruined." The twins' expressions-expression, really, since they apparently sported the same one-turned to one of suspicion.

"You want us to believe—"

"—that you want to distract _Snape_?"

"He's the scariest teacher in the school, mate."

"Even scarier than McGonagall."

"You'd have to be mental to want to do that."

"A _complete_ nutter."

"And by tomorrow?"

"That's a bit soon, even for us."

"You'd have to have no marbles left to think we could do that."

"Well, maybe one or two, because we are just that good."

"So? Are you missing enough marbles to really want our help?"

"Ah," Draco paused, "yes?" The red-haired teens frowned at him, and then turned away, staring at each other, seemingly having a silent conversation consisting of various frowns, half-grins, and eyebrow gesticulations. Finally, they turned back to him, expression serious.

"Look, we happen to have the second period of classes free—"

"—and no student's ever been off their rocker enough to want to mess with Snape—"

"—so we figure that you're sufficiently daft to warrant our helping you—"

"—but you need to know that if we're caught, Snape'll hang us by our little toes—"

"—and _then_ have us expelled."

"All three of us."

"Right," said Draco, failing to care about the twins' threats of torture-by-foot-hanging and expulsion; he was too caught up in the fact that they had agreed to help him. "Thank you, then."

"Anything for someone _that_ daft," said one of the twins.

"Yeah, since the only one who's ever tried messing with Snape is Peeves."

"And now Peeves can't even go near certain parts of the dungeons."

"But that's beside the point."

"Just wish us luck."

"Er," said Draco, looking at their expectant faces. "Good luck."

* * *

><p>The following day, Neville, Cedric, Susan, and even Justin picked up on his anxiety at breakfast. There were only two hours left until he would have to <em> steal<em> from a professor, and when he entered Transfigurations, his first class of the day, the Golden Trio all turned—without any subtlety at all—to give him meaningful looks, eyebrows raised, as if they were telling him to get on with it already. Draco gave them what he hoped was a confident and reassuring smile in return, and it seemed to appease them. Even so, he was grateful that McGonagall only lectured that day, because he knew his attempts would have been abysmal had he been asked to try a new spell.

Potions lessons took place in a large dungeon room with Professor Snape's desk in the front, though he rarely sat there during classes. More often, he paced up and down the rows of students brewing, stopping to criticise or, rarely, to praise. The second-year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were trying their hands at making Swelling Solution, which was neither particularly useful nor particularly dangerous, which Draco supposed was a good thing if all havoc was about to break loose.

It was cold in the dungeons, just as it always was, but Draco found that he was sweating as he and Justin worked. As his friend sent him worried glances over their cauldron, Draco snuck glimpses at the door just behind Snape's desk; he knew very well what it was, and had seen Snape come and go through that door many times before. That was the door to his private stores, and that was Draco's goal.

Exactly twenty-seven minutes after class began, a Ravenclaw named Terry Boot suddenly let out a loud yelp. He was at the back of the room, and immediately all heads twisted round to look; Snape began striding towards the boy, and by that time, everyone could see how Boot seemed to be inflating—he'd been splashed by the potion, then. Draco saw sparks out of the corner of his eye and turned to look—he was just in time to see a small firework land in Mandy Brocklehurst's potion, splashing her, as well.

Then at least ten more of the fireworks appeared, whizzing about the room in complex manoeuvres, sending down a shower of sparks as they fell, one by one, into cauldrons of Swelling Solution. Each firework would hit, splashing the students around them, making their lips and eyelids and knees swell to gross proportions, and then many would topple over, hitting anothers' cauldron, or bump into someone else, and the result was a spectacular chain reaction. Snape had whipped his wand out and was starting to hex down the remaining fireworks, and Draco took the opportunity to slip away in the direction opposite all of the students' turned heads.

Professor Snape was an obsessive and meticulous person, and this, thankfully, extended to his store cupboard. Inside the small room were rows and rows of jars and phials, all of them in perfect alphabetical order. Thinking quickly, Draco grabbed the bicorn horn, the boomslang skin, and, to throw Snape off their trail should he realise what the fireworks had really been for, several other, slightly more innocuous ingredients.

He managed to get out of the room and back to his seat before anyone realised he had gone, and it was a full ten minutes after before the chaos ended, all of the students splashed by Swelling Solution having been given Deflating Draught.

"If I find out," whispered Snape into the absolute silence of the dungeon classroom, sounding particularly dangerous and looking almost murderous, "that any one of you was involved in that prank, the least of your worries shall be expulsion." His eyes landed heavily on Draco, who managed to keep his expression meekly curious, if somewhat threatened—the stolen ingredients felt suddenly a million times heavier in his pocket, and he could feel a flush starting to creep onto his cheeks. Draco just barely avoided swallowing hard against the lump in his throat until Snape looked away.

* * *

><p>The whole school was now abuzz with the incident in the dungeons, temporarily leaving the topic of the Heir of Slytherin alone. At lunch, Potter caught his eye, and Draco nodded stiffly; he hadn't even bothered to take a seat at his table, as the stolen ingredients were still in his pocket, and he wanted very badly to be rid of them. Potter grinned exuberantly and elbowed Granger and Weasley to either side of him. The three rose, and Draco turned without waiting for them, heading straight for Moaning Myrtle's bathroom (or so it was called, though he hadn't actually <em>seen<em> this ghost; Granger said that she was very timid).

However, Draco didn't make it very far from the Great Hall before he was unceremoniously snatched by his robes once more.

"Watch it!" he snapped, now rather unsurprised to see the twins staring down at him from behind a strange and slightly grotesque statue of a one-eyed witch—who was also a humpback, which was just rotten luck for the real witch it had been modelled on, presuming that she had been. The two Weasleys stared at him with matching quizzical expressions. "Er, very good work this morning. Thanks."

"We happen to know, Malfoy—"

"—that there wasn't any test in your class. So why—"

"—did you ask us to interrupt?" They stared at him, still quizzical, but also confused, and Draco gave a rather tight, nervous grin.

"I don't like lying," said Draco, which was, almost to his surprise, entirely true, "but I had to this time, because it was the right thing to do. What I'm doing is secret, you see, and it's not just my secret, so I can't share it with you."

The twins' expressions turned vaguely dark and serious, and Draco shrank back slightly.

"That's actually very _Slytherin_ of you—"

"—and come to think of it, isn't your family very Slytherin?" They raised their eyebrows, obviously hinting that he was the Heir of Slytherin. Draco scowled at them and drew himself up to his full height—which, as he was twelve, was neither taller than the twins, nor very intimidating in its own right.

"I am a _Hufflepuff_," he said, managing to pull off an offended, haughty tone as he glared at them. "The Sorting Hat did not put me in Slytherin. I am not a Slytherin. I repeat to you, therefore, that I _am a Hufflepuff_!" The three boys stood still after this explosion, and then the twins shrugged in unison.

"We're a little impressed, actually."

"Not only did you have the gall to try to pull one over on Snape—"

"—you were smart enough to know that you should ask _us_ for help."

"Not to mention that you're a lying Hufflepuff—"

"—and we approve of a few well-placed lies."

"When it's for the good of others, of course."

"Or the good of ourselves."

"Yes, good point, Fred."

"Of course, George."

"Er," said Draco, blinking at them, "thank you?"

* * *

><p>By the time Draco made it to the girls' lavatory they were using as their headquarters, lunch was nearly through and the Gryffindors were very impatient.<p>

"There you are! I was beginning to get worried," said Hermione as Draco promptly began handing over the ingredients he'd procured (he blanched every time he so much as thought the word _stolen_, and so avoided using it).

"Yeah, we thought you'd just gone off on your own and kept it for yourself," said Weasley, and Draco fixed a glare on the other boy, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I wouldn't have been late if I hadn't been accosted by your brothers."

"My brothers?" repeated the youngest Weasley boy dully. "Which ones?"

"The twins," said Draco.

"Fred and George," supplied Weasley automatically, even though Draco hadn't asked. "What'd they want from you?"

"They wanted to know why they'd sent several dozen fireworks into Professor Snape's class this morning," he answered with a shrug, and was met with three sets of raised eyebrows. "I told them that there was a very important test occurring today for which I was woefully unprepared, and they agreed to interrupt the proceedings."

"That was very clever," said Granger approvingly, glancing up at him from the instructions for the Polyjuice Potion, "getting suspicion away from you that way. Well done."

"Ah, thank you," answered Draco after a long moment, blinking at the unexpected praise. She nodded decisively and then turned back to the book. Draco cleared his throat. "If you'll excuse me, I need to be getting to Herbology now. Please leave me alone until the potion is nearly ready; I need some time away from you Gryffindors, if you don't mind." He turned on his heel and left before they could reply, but on the way out, Draco still heard Weasley muttering about drama queens. He sighed, because it was apparent that Gryffindors just couldn't appreciate good theatricality.

* * *

><p>Draco refused to respond to the questioning, almost suspicious looks Neville and Cedric gave him at breakfast the following day, and eventually, the incident in Potions was forgotten in favour of the excited tittering running up and down the table about the new Duelling Club. Although Cedric seemed to be looking forward to it, and Neville was almost frantic to find some way of protecting himself (he kept insisting that he was very nearly a Squib, like Filch, rather than listening when everyone else reminded him that he was a Pureblood), Draco had no intention of attending. He wanted nothing more than to curl up in front of the fire in the Hufflepuff common room and read, though he suspected that he wouldn't be able, by the way Cedric was frowning at him.<p>

"Don't you think it's a good idea, Draco?"

"No," he answered flatly as he rather viciously stabbed a piece of his eggs. "No, I think that teaching a large body of children how to cause limited harm to each other more effectively is a terrible idea when there are still obvious divisions within the school."

"You don't think the students are going to start hexing each other," Cedric replied, frowning. A sneer briefly crossed Draco's features at Cedric's seemingly boundless optimism.

"I do."

"I'm not sure that I could be as pessimistic as you are sometimes," Cedric said. Neville remained silent, because he tended towards the worst-case scenario, just as Draco did—but where Draco was planning for the worst, Neville would simply worry about it.

"Realistic, Cedric." The look he got from his older friend clearly said that he was unimpressed.

"Just go to the Duelling Club meeting, will you?" Cedric asked after a long moment of silence. Draco frowned at him and noticed for the first time that the other Hufflepuff did appear a bit worried. "It's just that with the trouble you get into with the Gryffindors—no offence, Neville—"

"S'okay," Neville murmured, even though they all knew that, in the end, Neville had been the one to drag Draco to the third floor corridor the previous year.

"—I'd feel better if you knew what you were doing." Draco stared at Cedric, and finally sighed and looked away. Cedric grinned, knowing that he had won, and the tension suddenly faded. Conversation after that was much lighter, and Draco went off to class feeling lighter than he had since before he'd gotten involved in this year's Gryffindor heroics.

Besides, Cedric was right. It would probably be a good idea to learn what he could before he went charging into the fire with Harry sodding Potter—and this was a school-sponsored activity, monitored by teachers. What could possibly go wrong?

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Bit of an almost-filler chapter, really. Chapter fifteen is the Duelling Club, and Ginny Weasley makes her first appearance. I've decided to update every Tuesday and every Friday, so look for the next update later this week!


	15. Chapter 15

In the Great Hall, the long dining tables had vanished and a golden stage had appeared along one wall, lit by thousands of candles floating overhead. The ceiling was velvety black and most of the school seemed to be packed beneath it, all carrying their wands and looking excited, it seemed, save for Draco, standing between Cedric and Neville (who, for his own part, appeared more nervous than excited), his arms folded over his chest and his expression carefully neutral.

"Come on, Draco," Cedric cajoled, "it won't be bad. They'll teach us a few defensive shielding spells, a few useful jinxes, and then we'll all go back to our common rooms feeling much better."

"Yes, because I'm sure a leg-locker curse and a basic _Protego_ will help when an evil dark wizard is trying to petrify you," Draco drawled, shooting Cedric an arch look. In response, his older friend hit him lightly with his shoulder, his eyes flitting briefly but significantly to Neville, whose eyes had gone wide at Draco's statement. With a small sigh, Draco forced a smile. "But then, I guess it couldn't hurt."

"That's the spirit, Mister Malfoy!" All three turned as they heard the voice of their least competent professor; Gilderoy Lockhart stood behind them, and clapped one hand on Cedric's shoulder, and the other on Draco's. The professor was resplendent in robes of deep purple, his wide, sparklingly white smile fixed in place, per usual. "Leave it to us to show you how to keep yourselves safe in this... troubled time. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get on stage with my colleague- where _has_ he gone to?" Wandering off, Draco shot Cedric a glare.

"And now I _know_ that nothing good can come of this."

"No, you don't," Cedric retorted, rolling his eyes. "Professor Lockhart isn't the only supervisor of the club- didn't you hear him?"

"Then who-?" Draco trailed off as he saw Professor Lockhart climbing up onto the stage, followed closely by Professor Snape, looking just as dour as Lockhart did chipper, his black robes billowing slightly behind him. "Now _this_ could be promising." Beside him, Neville groaned quietly, biting his lip.

Lockhart waved an arm for silence and called, "Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent!

"Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little duelling club, to train you all in case you ever need to defend yourselves, as I myself have done on countless occasions- for full details, see my published works.

"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," said Lockhart, flashing a wide smile. "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about duelling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry- you'll still have your Potions Master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

Snape's upper lip was curling, and Draco snickered. Cedric's lip twitched while Neville simply continued to chew on the inside of his cheek in anxiety.

Lockhart and Snape turned to face each other and bowed (though Snape's bow was more of an irritable jerk of his head), and they raised their wands like swords in front of them. Draco waited impatiently for them to get on with the duelling- he had seen, on very limited occasions, examples of Professor Snape's prowess with duelling spells, and he was very keen to watch their Potions Master thrash the other, incompetent wizard.

"As you can see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position," Lockhart told the silent crowd. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course." Draco snorted again quietly as Snape bared his teeth at Lockhart's statement. "One- two- three-"

Both of them swung their wands above their heads and pointed them at their opponent; Snape cast _Expelliarmus_, and it was accompanied by the usual flash of scarlet light, blasting Lockhart off his feet. He flew backward off the stage, smashed into the wall, and slid down it to sprawl on the floor.

Teddy and many of the other Slytherins began to cheer, and only Cedric's restraining hand on his shoulder kept Draco from joining them. Lockhart was getting unsteadily to his feet. His hat had fallen off and his wavy hair was standing on end.

"Well, there you have it!" he said, tottering back onto the platform. "That was a Disarming Charm- as you see, I've lost my wand- ah, thank you, Miss Brown- yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind my saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy- however, I felt it would be instructive to let them see..." Lockhart stopped, noticing the murderous look on Snape's face. "Enough demonstrating! I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me-"

Lockhart kindly paired Neville with Justin, and Cedric with Draco- but the young Hufflepuff frowned as he saw Snape push Theodore through the crowd and straight towards Potter. While Weasley got to partner with another Gryffindor- Seamus Finnigan, Draco identified- Granger was given another Slytherin- Millicent Bulstrode. Draco clenched his jaw, knowing that the Slytherins wouldn't hold back against the Gryffindors.

"Are you alright?" Cedric asked, and then followed his friend's gaze towards the Gryffindor trio. "They'll be fine, Draco- Snape is here, and even if he won't do something, Lockhart will at least put a stop to anything excessive. It'll be _fine_." Draco nodded woodenly and dragged his attention to his friend and away from the Gryffindor-Slytherin pairs.

"Face your partners!" called Lockhart, back on the platform. "And bow!"

Cedric and Draco bowed, then straightened, and raised their wands. For the first time, Draco felt nerves beginning to set in- Cedric was older, and more experienced, and his _friend_-

"Wands at the ready!" shouted Lockhart. "When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponents- _only_ to disarm them- we don't want any accidents- one- two- three-"

Draco cast precisely on three, but rather than casting a disarming charm, his mouth moved on its own to form _Protego_, blocking Cedric's disarming charm- his friend had just enough time to shoot him a small smile before the disarming spell Draco was already casting hit him. Draco sucked in a breath, already feeling guilty, but the spell had hardly been hard enough to send Cedric stumbling back a few steps, his wand still firmly in hand. His friend sent him a wider grin, and Draco smiled back, feeling the knots in his stomach beginning to uncoil.

"Not bad," Cedric shouted, trying to make sure that he was heard over the other pairs, still shouting spells- not all of them disarming spells, either. "Bit Slytherin to block first." As ever, there was no real judgement in Cedric's voice, and so Draco merely gave him a small smirk and a shrug of his shoulder. Together, the two turned back to the stage, freezing as they took in the chaos around them.

Neville and Justin were lying on the floor, panting; Potter and Theodore Nott were shouting all manner of jinxes and hexes at each other; Millicent had Granger in some sort of headlock, both of their wands forgotten on the floor. As Snape strode forward to end Nott and Potter's enchantments, Potter immediately went to his friend's aid, trying to pull Millicent off of Granger; Weasley went to her aid as well, after a moment, and together they pried the larger girl off of their friend.

"Dear, dear," said Lockhart, skittering through the crowd, looking at the aftermath of the duels. "Up you go, Macmillan... Careful there, Miss Fawcett... Pinch it hard, it'll stop bleeding in a second, Boot-

"I think I'd better teach you how to _block_ unfriendly spells," said Lockhard, stannding flustered in the midst of the hall. He glanced at Snape, whose black eyes glinted and looked quickly away. "Let's have a volunteer pair- Longbottom and Finch-Fletchely, how about you-"

"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart," said Snape, gliding over. "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We'll be sending what's left of Finch-Fletchely up to the hospital wing in a matchbox." Draco frowned, having never heard Snape say something quite so... _cruel _before, and wondered if he should re-evaluate what Neville had said about Snape's treatment of the Gryffindors. "How about Nott and Potter?" Snape's smile was twisted, and Draco felt his stomach clench again, knowing that this didn't bode well.

"Excellent idea!" said Lockhart, gesturing Potter and Nott into the middle of the hall as the crowd backed away to give them room.

Draco heard Lockhart trying to demonstrate for Potter the basics of a blocking charm while Snape whispered into Nott's ear, adding to Draco's certainty that this was going to be an unfair fight from the first. He couldn't repress a huff of laughter as Lockhart dropped his wand in attempting to demonstrate the proper motion, and Cedric tried to give him a stern look and failed due to the smile tugging at his own lips.

"Three-" It was all too obvious that Potter was woefully unprepared for whatever unfair attack Theodore had in mind, and Draco frowned as Lockhart began his countdown. "Two- one- go!"

Nott raised his wand quickly and bellowed, "_Serpensortia!_" The end of Theodore's wand exploded, and everyone watched as a long black snake shot out of it, fell hevily onto the floor between the two boys, and raised itself, ready to strike. Those near the front of the crowd screamed and backed swiftly away, clearing the floor.

"Don't move, Potter," said Snape lazily, clearly enjoying the sight of Potter standing motionless, eye to eye with the angry snake. "I'll get rid of it..."

"Allow me!" shouted Lockhart. He brandished his wand at the snake and there was a loud bang; the snake, instead of vanishing, flew ten feet into the air and fell back to the floor with a loud smack. Enraged, hissing furiously, it slithered straight toward Justin Finch-Fletchley and raised itself again, fansgs exposed, poised to strike-

But it didn't. Instead, the snake froze as Potter walked towards it, furious hissing and spitting flying from his mouth. The snake then slumped to the floor, docile as a thick, black garden hose, looking up expectantly at Potter.

Draco felt his insides go cold.

"What do you think you're playing at?" shouted Justin, and before Potter could say anything, Justin had turned and stormed out of the hall.

Snape stepped forward, waved his wand, and the snake vanished in a small puff of black smoke. Snape- and everyone else in the hall, for that matter- was staring at Potter. The professor's expression was shrewd and calculating- all around, the crowd began to mutter and jostle.

Then Weasley and Granger were ushering Potter out of the hall, and Draco was left to wonder how his knees were strong enough to hold him up when they felt like jelly.

"Come on," Cedric said simply, and Draco nodded, putting away his wand in his robes and walking wordlessly with his friend to their common room. Once inside, Cedric looked at him and sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. I know I pushed you into going to the club, and I said nothing would happen, but-"

"It's fine, Cedric," Draco answered, his voice strangely calm. He felt detached from his body and emotions, though he could feel the adrenalin coursing through him. "It's just... Harry Potter. It's always Harry Potter, isn't it? That's none of your fault. I'm... going to bed. Goodnight." Cedric reached out to put a hand on Draco's shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Draco said, "I just want to go to sleep." Cedric studied him for a long moment, and then finally nodded, releasing him.

Draco plodded up the stairs woodenly, and changed into his pyjamas without conscious thought- trying not to let himself think at all, in fact. It wasn't until he was safely ensconced in his bed with the hangings firmly closed that he allowed himself to think- to panic, really.

If Harry Potter was a Parselmouth, then he _could_ very likely be a descendent of Salazar Slytherin- the Potter line was a Pureblood one, and although its origins as a line certainly went back to the time of the Founders, it became a bit... murky. If Potter was a descendent of Salazar Slytherin, and Slytherin had left a Chamber in the school with a dangerous beast inside for only his heir to find and use to kill Muggle-borns, then... And how _had_ he defeated a Dark Lord at the age of one? How could any _baby_ have the power to do something like that?

More importantly, if Potter _was_ the Heir of Slytherin, and he _was _the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets, then why was he really asking for Draco's help getting into the Slytherin common room?

Draco found that he couldn't sleep for a long while that night, tossing and turning, occupied by thoughts of Harry Potter and the all too mysterious Heir of Slytherin.

* * *

><p>The following morning dawned cold and grey, with a blizzard clearly visible through the windows. Draco groaned as he realised that he was running late and would have to jog through the snowy wind to get to Herbology on time. As he pushed aside the hangings around his bed, he saw Justin sitting on his own, only several down from Draco's.<p>

"No need to rush," Justin said, seeming unusually calm. "Herbology was cancelled because of the weather. Professor Sprout wants to tend to the mandrakes- put socks on them, that sort of thing."

"Oh," said Draco, wishing for something intelligent to say. "Thank you." Justin nodded, but the gesture was a bit stiff, revealing his anxiety. "Even if Potter... if he _is_ the Heir of Slytherin, he couldn't come after you now. It would be too obvious." Justin didn't respond, simply stayed frozen for a long moment, and Draco felt very stupid. Finally, Justin nodded incrimentally.

"You're probably right," he said, "but I think I'm still just going to stay here until the winter holiday starts." Draco nodded then, and Justin sighed. "And to think I just _told _him that I had my name down for Eton... Should've been more careful..."

"I'm sure you'll be fine, Justin," Draco said, still feeling useless- he wasn't sure what the truth was, and he wasn't at all accustomed to trying to be comforting. "Just... lie low, I suppose. As you planned."

"Keep calm and carry on, hm?" Justin said with a smile, and then shook his head when his obviously Muggle reference failed to ring any bells for Draco. "Nevermind. If you hurry, you can make it to breakfast." Draco nodded, thankful to have been given an excuse to leave, and hurried to change his clothes and straighten his hair before dashing down the stairs and out of the common room.

The majority of the seats in the Great Hall were empty that morning, most of the students (and staff) preferring to sleep in or laze about since there were no classes to attend or to teach that morning. Draco sat by himself at his house table, returning rather half-heartedly the soft greetings of Hannah Abbott farther down the table. Halfway through picking at his breakfast, Cedric appeared and sat across from him.

"Good morning," his friend said, sounding perfectly normal.

"Good morning," Draco returned, but Cedric knew immediately that Draco thought it to be anything but a good morning.

"What's the matter? Have you still got yourself worked up about what happened at the duelling club last night?" asked Cedric, and Draco shook his head- too quickly- and continued to stare at his plate.

"It's simply that... I gave my word that I would help... someone to do..._ something_, but I didn't... all of the facts were not available to me at the time," Draco said, "and I'm not sure if I'm still bound by my word." Cedric's eyes narrowed as he thought through his friend's convoluted statement, and then he sighed noisily.

"That thing that you asked me about- when you asked if I would do something that I thought would make the school safer when it was something a professor couldn't help with," Cedric guessed correctly, "that was something that Potter asked you to help with, something relating to the business with the Heir of Slytherin and the Chamber of Secrets and Mrs Norris and Colin Creevey getting petrified. You didn't know Potter was a Parselmouth then, and you're not sure if you should help him, now." Draco didn't respond, because Cedric had puzzled out his problem exactly. "Draco, I still don't think that Harry Potter is the Heir of Slytherin. He's too _nice_, and he's friends with Hermoine Granger, who's a Muggle-born, and Ron Weasley, who are... what's the word for them?"

"Blood traitors," Draco supplied in a mutter- he had heard the Weasleys railed against at home when his parents and their friends believed him to be out of earshot, and that term had come up more frequently than Draco could count.

"Right. If he was really the Heir of Slytherin, would he be friends with either of them? Of course not!"

"But how did he defeat the Dark Lord when he was just a _baby_? And we really _don't know_ who the Potters are related to when it gets as far back as the Founders- for all we know, Potter _could _be a distant relation of Salazar Slytherin-"

"Draco, he's a Gryffindor."

"And I'm a Hufflepuff, and my family is distantly related to Rowena Ravenclaw _and_ the founders of Durmstrang," Draco argued. "His house placement doesn't mean much."

"Well, if you've decided that the Heir of Slytherin doesn't have to be a _Slytherin_, then why are you so focused on singling out Potter?"

"Because so far as I have seen, Cedric, none of the other students at the school have shown any evidence of possessing an _extremely rare magical ability that Salazar Slytherin also had and is found almost exclusively in dark wizards_," Draco said, and Cedric sighed, then shrugged.

"I just can't get my head around the idea," Cedric told him bluntly. "I can't picture Harry Potter as wanting to kill anyone- let alone people who are his friends, but the rest of the school seems to agree with you.

"As for whether or not you should help Potter- I think you should at least talk to him before you decide not to, give him a chance to explain himself," Cedric said. "After giving your word, that would only be fair, wouldn't it?" Draco sighed and rubbed at his temples, then pushed his plate away, giving up on the idea of food for the moment.

"I suppose you're right," Draco answered, though he wished his friend weren't. He was dreading the idea of speaking to Harry Potter even one more time- but he supposed he could, if it would be what was fair. Decision made, Draco found a portrait of a young girl who had always been very friendly to him in the past when he asked for directions and asked her to take a message to the Fat Lady of Gryffindor Tower.

* * *

><p>Draco waited and waited in the out-of-order girls' lavatory where they were brewing the Polyjuice Potion- which positively <em>reeked<em> by that point, and Draco felt his stomach roil unpleasantly at the thought of drinking any of the sludge- but Harry Potter didn't come. Draco wondered if his message had reached Gryffindor Tower, but the girl whose portrait he had entrusted it to said that she knew the way, as she had been in Gryffindor herself as a student.

Finally, the door opened with a bang, and Draco was about to let a stream of abuse roll off the tip of his tongue for Potter's tardiness, only to stop short as he realised it wasn't Harry Potter who had entered the lavatory, but a small girl with long, red hair. Her face was unnaturally pale- almost as pale as Draco's was- and her eyes were red and puffy, with bags under them. She was clutching a slightly worn book to her chest, and studying Draco with a startled expression.

"Wh-what are you doing in here?" she asked, her voice coming out very small. "You're a boy- this is a girl's lavatory."

"Er, yes," Draco answered, unable to dispute this or answer the question without implicating himself in activities that went directly against school rules. "I am a boy. Are you alright?" Her lips thinned and her chin wobbled rather pathetically, and her eyes filled with tears- she was most assuredly _not_ alright. "Er. This lavatory is out of order anyway, you know."

"I know," she said. "I just like to come here, sometimes. It's... private."

"Except for Myrtle," Draco corrected, and the girl's lips twitched in a smile rather than a frown this time.

"Except for Myrtle," she agreed.

"So, are you really alright?" asked Draco again awkwardly. She looked down at the floor, and shrugged jerkily.

"I guess I'm just... startled by what happened," she said slowly. Draco frowned.

"Last night at the duelling club?" he asked, and she shook her head.

"No, today. They... Justin Finch-Fletchley and Sir Nearly-Headless Nick were just found," she said, her voice a hoarse whisper that Draco had to strain to hear over the sound of his heartbeat, which was rushing in his ears, getting ever louder. "They were... both of them were petrified. And... they found Harry Potter there. Nobody else. Just Harry."

Draco felt his stomach sink like a stone. It was settled, then. Harry Potter was a Parselmouth, and the Heir of Slytherin, and there wasn't anything anyone could say to convince him otherwise or make him help them, no matter what he'd promised.

The redheaded girl was staring at him when he looked up at her, and Draco nodded jerkily.

"Thank you for telling me," he said, again feeling disconnected from himself, the same way he had the night before when the stress had gotten to him. "I wasn't aware."

"Oh," she said, and there was an awkward moment of silence. "I know Harry didn't hurt them."

"All of the evidence says he did," Draco said, not unkindly, trying to keep his voice soothing, but the girl shook her head frantically.

"He _didn't_," she said, and her eyes filled with tears again. "He couldn't have done it. He couldn't have."

"Look, I-" It was too late. Before Draco could finish speaking, the girl ran to the end of the bathroom and locked herself in one of the stalls- thankfully not the one in which the potion was brewing- and began to sob, loudly, interspersed with hiccuping gasps for breath. Biting his lip, Draco decided that there was nothing more he could do to comfort the girl, and slipped out of the bathroom.

Just outside in the hallway, Draco stopped dead. If Harry Potter was the Heir of Slytherin, and he'd petrified Creevey and Justin and Sir Nicholas, then whatever it was he wanted to do in the Slytherin common room was probably only for his own gain, and nothing good could come of it. Draco grimaced- there was nothing for it, then. He would have to warn the Slytherins, and that meant that no matter _what_, he had to make Pansy listen to him this time.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: ...I haven't updated in quite a while. Sorry. I'm obviously still working on this. Updates will be rather slow. I won't make any more promises, as I think I've learned my lesson about those...<p>

Hope what's to come is worth the wait.


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